Project Miranda
by HelenBeacham
Summary: Friends and family join forces to unravel the mystery behind Steve and Danny's disappearance.
1. Chapter 1

_This is a continuation to the AU story 'Strange Bedfellows' ID: __8915502 _

**I am grateful to all that have been PMed me over the last few months asking about the sequel to SB. You kept me going! I hope you will enjoy the ride.**

Here's a brief recap of the end scene in 'Strange Bedfellows' to set this new story.

_Later that afternoon, Frances drove back to her hotel with her head swimming with billions of confusing images, disturbing thoughts, shocking conjectures, outlandish theories and soul-stirring childhood memories; all merging into a lethal blend of mind-scorching embers that were literally ripping her apart, and which she could have done without so soon following the tragic accident that nearly cost Steve's and Danny's lives. _

_No sooner had she entered her room that she kicked off her shoes and plumped down on the bed, mentally consumed. She closed her eyes in an effort to regain her composure by draining some of the thick soup of information her brain was drowning into._

_Once she regained a semblance of equanimity, she reached for her cell phone and dialed Steve's number. Her eyes dropped in despair when she heard his voice mail. _

"_Hi sweetie, it's me. Say when you have a few minutes, could you call me? I have something to tell you. It's not urgent. Call when you can. Okay, bye." She hung up and turned on her right side where she curled up in a ball. _

* * *

_It was early in the evening when she started out of sleep. She glanced at the digital clock shimmering seven fifteen. With a yawn, she turned on her back and rubbed the haze out of her eyes._

_Seconds later, her phone rang. She elbowed herself into a sitting position, picked up her cell phone and read the __caller ID.__ The name 'Chin' made her frown._

"_Chin?"_

"_Yeah, it's me." His voice held a dash of distress._

"_What's up?"_

"_We have a bit of a situation here."_

"_What do you mean? Is Steve with you?"_

"_No he's not. He's…well...he and Danny are missing."_

"_Missing? What you mean missing?"_

"_We were chasing after two fleeing suspects and at some point, we split into two teams..." _

"_Wait, wait, wait, did you say chasing after suspects? Chin, what were they doing out there? They weren't cleared for field work."_

"_I know," Chin sighed with a slight embarrassment. "But try telling that to __S__teve?"_

"_I should have known!" she gnarled. "Chin you were supposed to watch them!"_

"_I know but I thought they would just tag along and be nice boys."_

"_You dangle a piece of raw meat in front of a shark and you tell him to be nice?" she quipped._

"_Yeah, I realize now that it was a dreadful mistake."_

"_And Danny went along with him?"_

"_He was beyond incensed that Steve would take off like that but yes, he did follow to make sure he didn't get into trouble. Ironic, isn't it? Anyway Kono and I went after one guy while Steve and Danny tailed the second one. Then the earthquake hit."_

"_An earthquake? How bad?"_

"_It was reported 5.6 on the Richter scale and lasted a good fifteen seconds. The information we're getting is still sketchy but at first glance the damage appears to be limited. Steve and Danny didn't report back and it's been well over two hours."_

"_Were there shots fired?"_

"_Quite a few but I made them wear their vests just in case it turned ugly. Kono was slapping the cuffs on our man when we heard the shots. She stayed behind while I went to see if Steve and Danny needed backup. They were nowhere to be seen. If they'd been hurt or killed, I would have found them."_

"_The suspect could have had a getaway car waiting for him. How long a delay between the shots and when you reached the spot where you heard them?"_

"_I'd say about a minute. They were close by. Definitely not enough time to haul two bodies into a car. Besides which there were no roads leading into the rainforest."_

"_Were there cliffs nearby?"_

"_No. It's all flat."_

"_Chin, that's ridiculous! They couldn't simply have vanished into thin air. They must be somewhere. They could have fallen into a trap or a hole in the ground."_

"_We checked. So far we didn't find any."_

"_Chin we must find them," she urged, panic evident in her voice. "They are still recovering from that bombing and they weren't cleared for field work just yet. You can imagine my concern?"_

"_We all share it with you."_

"_Well wherever they are at least they're together…I hope. Ah listen, I'm wrapping up down here and I'll try to be in Honolulu in twenty-four hours. Are the airports open?"_

"_So far it's all clear. We'll wait for you. In the meantime, we'll keep you abreast of any new development."_

_She hung up, shaken to the core by this additional bolt out of the blue. She glanced down at her left hand and began twisting her engagement ring. "Dear Lord, let them be all right."_

* * *

**Now on with the continuation...**

She was livid. She wanted to wring his neck and ripped him to shreds for not complying with his doctor's strict instructions. She knew that daredevilry coursed through his veins and that his impulse to court danger was a trait that she had accepted to live with, but this was downright careless of him. Although Steve and Danny were given the green light to return to duty following the near-fatal tragedy, field work was still proscribed until they had completed their physiotherapy and before leaving for Washington, she had cautioned Steve of the dire consequences if he so much disregarded her warning.

Frances strode up and down the length of her hotel room in an attempt to recover her composure following Chin's call. She was beside herself with a mix of worry and anger. Following a few cleansing breaths to clear the steam, she called the airline to book the first available flight to Hawaii. She hoped that by the time she reached Honolulu the missing lambs would have returned to the fold, and that she would choose to either fall into Steve's arms and shower him with kisses, or rather pummel him to the ground and beat the crap out of him for turning a deaf ear to her warning.

She could not pass any judgment before all facts and circumstances were taken into account but according to Chin's statement, Steve and Danny were engaged in a chase after an offender, not that they were running for their lives, which told her that her stubborn mule had not heeded hers nor his doctor's advices to keep work to a bare minimum. But try drilling that notion into a former SEAL's head? She sympathized with Danny knowing that he must have endeavored to stop him but being his faithful partner, he must have grinned and bore it and followed Steve to keep an eye on him. The thought of them missing together reassured Frances to some extent but she nevertheless feared the worse.

She switched on her laptop to check the reports of earthquake activities in the Hawaiian region and indeed, Oahu had recently been rocked by a 5.6 earthquake that lasted thirteen seconds. Tremors were a frequent occurrence in Hawaii but they usually registered lower than 3 on the Richter scale. However this one was a concern as the NOAA observed unusual seismic activities beneath the earth in the past few weeks and even issued a warning of an impending volcanic eruption. Could Steve and Danny be trapped in a confined space where the team hadn't bothered to look?

* * *

HPD officers had converged to the scene where Chin and Kono were already scouring the area for clues to elucidate the baffling disappearance.

"So? Did you find anything?" Duke asked one of his officers.

"Nothing, chief."

"What about patches of quicksand or sink holes?"

"None that we've seen around these parts and there are no cliffs either. The terrain in flat. We also checked for caves. Nothing."

"Come on, they just couldn't have vanished into thin air!" Duke vented his frustration on his young rookie, swiftly offering an apology as he realized he had spoken insolently to the innocent, still inexperienced officer. "I'm sorry, Anderson. It's been a trying day. First the earthquake and this."

"It's all right, chief. I understand all too well. They must still be on the island. We've notified all airports, airfields, marinas, docks. They're all on the lookout for two men with Williams and McGarrett's description. Whoever took them, if anyone, must know that they are trapped and cannot flee the island by regular means of transport," the young officer assured.

"What about charters or even Medevacs?"

"They're also on the alert."

"Choppers however can land and take off just about anywhere, though, with virtually no clearance at all," Chin offered as a plausible conjecture that may have been overlooked.

"But the burning question still remains. How in the hell can you snatch two men out of here so quickly? I expect both McGarrett and Williams were in good enough shape when they took off after the guy?"

"Sure," Chin confirmed.

"Surely they would have put up a fight? Unless they were rendered unconscious."

"Or killed," offered the young officer.

"Indeed it's a possibility we can't rule out even with the lack of blood evidence. Either way you need strong abled bodies to drag dead weights around and you say you showed up barely a minute after you hear the shots?"

"That's right. But I didn't stick around long enough to search the entire premises. It's possible they could have hidden while waiting for me to go back and then moved them out."

"Lieutenant Kelly!" Doctor Max Bergman called out from his crouched position.

Duke, Chin and Kono made their way up to him. "Max, did you find something?"

Max pointed to a faded heel print in the muddy soil. "That is shaped like a boot print, and if I'm not mistaken Commander McGarrett wears combat booths, does he not?"

"Yes he does," Kono concurred.

"That could belong to anyone who passed through here, like a hiker. Nevertheless can you make a mold to have analyzed?" Duke asked.

"No problem."

"Found any blood?" Kono asked.

"Negative."

"Okay so we know they came through here but that doesn't tell us where they've disappeared to. Wo Fat or even McFadden couldn't have been behind this. They're both in jail, unless they're pulling the strings from the inside?" Duke addressed Chin, "What about the guy they were tailing? Did he have ties to the Yakuza?"

"Can't say. We have yet to interrogate his accomplice. Hopefully he can shed some light on this possible alliance."

"If not then I guess we'll need to bring in the heavy artillery." Duke looked up at the sky. "Sun's going to set pretty soon. We'll have to call off the search for tonight and resume first thing tomorrow morning."

At that moment the earth began to move. "Shit, here comes another one."

* * *

A wandering pain slowly crept up his spine, spurring him back to consciousness. Danny groaned awake, wincing at the sledgehammer pounding in his skull. As he attempted to shift to a more comfortable position, a tsunami of pain assaulted his senses and instantly fired every nerve in his body.

"Arggggg!" he gnarled, spitting the foul taste rolling off his raspy tongue. Keeping his eyes tightly shut, he brought a hand to his pounding head and remained still to quell the myriad of stinging needles piercing through his skin. The soreness experienced was sheer torture. "What the…" He sucked in a deep breath that seared his lungs and triggered a cough, which in turn elicited a violent spasm down his spine. His arched his back and hissed in pain. "Oh this isn't good," he muttered, daring a sluggish hand to the back of his sore neck with hopes to soothe the throbbing with a gentle rub. He then ventured turning on his left side to sputter the balls of slimy dust out of his mouth.

Once the attack of pain subsided, he rolled back into a supine position and slowly pried his eyelids apart. He blinked open his eyes to a pitch dark world, gasping at the frightening thought of being blind. He slowly and painfully brought a hand in front of his eyes and waved it around to test his eyesight that was gradually adjusting to night vision. Relief set in when he perceived a dim shadowy shape and figured that he was enclosed in either a dark windowless cell or was trapped under ground.

The ferric scent of blood assaulted his nose and he instantly sensed something soft and warm nearby. Keeping his movement to a strict minimum to avoid triggering additional pain, he fumbled with the Velcro straps of his bullet-proof vest to release the pressure and allow him room to take stock of his injuries by roaming his hands over his chest and abdomen and other various parts of his body. Aside from incredible muscle tenderness and stinging bruises, all limbs appeared intact.

In spite of the merciless pounding in his brain, he was able to drill through the murkiness and draw a memory or two of how he came to be in this predicament.

With a wary hand, he started groping the massive lump lying close to him, which he recognized as human flesh. He figured it had first softened his fall before he rolled away on the ground, thus sparing him from any grievous injuries that would have otherwise killed him in what he roughly estimated as a sharp thirty to fifty-foot drop.

As his hand blindly reached for the neck to feel for a pulse, he recoiled at the contact with a sticky warm substance that he deduced was blood coming from what he could feel was a cracked skull. His heart began hammering out of his chest and he swallowed dryly at the likely identity of the man lying next to him.

With a nervous gulp that stuck halfway down in his parched throat, he flashed his watch light at the bloodied face. "Oh thank God," Danny heaved out loud, relieved that the dead man wasn't his partner, but rather the suspect they had been chasing before he quake hit. All things considered he was grateful to the poor fellow who died breaking Danny's fall. He checked the pulse and sure enough, the man was dead.

Suddenly an eerie thought crept up in his mind. That suspect might have acted as his cushion, but McGarrett on the other hand must undoubtedly have landed hard on the solid ground. That chilling thought made his blood curdle.

"Steve? Steve, where are you? Come on buddy, answer me," Danny called out frantically, eliciting a dry cough that triggered searing pain coursing through his body. His heart rate skyrocketed and his breathing hastened, growing heavier with each passing second of silence. "Steve?" With agonizing pain, he rolled onto his stomach and painfully attempted to haul himself up on his hands and knees. He paused to catch his breath before gingerly shedding his vest. The mere task sapped his strength and again, he paused to draw a few steady breaths to suppress the rising nausea before he started crawling on all four, discarding his own stabbing pain and his pounding head, as he focused on finding his partner that he feared might have met a similar fate. "Steve? Can you hear me?"

He groped the ground, blindly fumbling at the dark as he aimlessly crept along. "Come on buddy," he pleaded, "answer me."

"Dannnnnnny?" Finally it came in the form of a quavering, wheezing whisper.

"Steve?" Danny turned toward the faint voice. "Steve? Are you okay?"

"I can't breathe!" Steve said in a choke.


	2. Chapter 2

**_I am so overwhelmingly grateful for your responses to chapter 1 of my SB continuation. I hope to take you on a roller-coaster of emotions. I should be able to post a new installment every weekend._**

**_The next two chapters are about Steve and Danny whump. Thereafter we begin the investigation as to what our two fellows have gotten themselves into._**

"Hold on, I'm coming."

"Where …where are you?" Steve rasped out. "I can't…I can't see you."

"Wait, I'm coming. Concentrate on your breathing."

A sudden debilitating dizzy spell sent Danny tipping over on his side. He shook his head and took a moment to breathe the wooziness away before diligently resuming his blind trek. "Steve? You're still with me?" he asked fretfully, as he tried reorienting himself following that bout of vertigo.

"Danny?" Steve called out in a hushed, pained voice.

Danny succeeded in finding Steve and tapped his shoulder in reassurance. "I'm here. Found ya." He knelt down beside his partner and flashed the dim light of his watch into Steve's face. "Hold on." Danny unlatched Steve's bullet-proof vest to relieve the pressure on his chest, after which he crawled over behind his head and knelt down to get leverage.

"What...what are you doing?"

"Elevating your head so you can breathe easier," Danny explained as he slid his arms underneath the suffocating man's shoulders to lift his head to rest on his lap.

"Don't!" Steve protested in a ghostly whisper, knowing the move would send blistering pain shooting down his body. He beckoned Danny to lean close to his face as he struggled to speak, "It won't help. My...my lungs have…have collapsed. We have...have to re...re-inflate at least one."

"Now how do we do that?" Danny asked incredulously, once again bending down to lend an ear to Steve's instructions.

His mouth moved but no sound was heard until he managed to suck in a small searing breath. "Find…find a hollow…hollow branch, ve...very small. Twig."

"Easier said than done," Danny scoffed through a ragged breath.

"T…try."

"Okay." With a glimmering light shining his way Danny began his task crawling on all four, groping the ground until he found what he was looking for. He returned to Steve and showed him the stick. "Will this do?"

"Yeah…yeah fine," Steve mumbled in a faint voice. "Now reach...reach into my pants. I…I have a pock...pocket knife."

Danny did as instructed. "Got it. Now what?"

He drew in another painful breath and wheezed out, "Mak…make a spear out...out of it. Has to...to be real sharp."

"Where you're going with this, Steven?"

"Do it and…and I'll expl...explain later." Steve tried to level his shallow breathing to get enough air to sustain him until the intervention.

"Got it. How's that?" He showed it to Steve who nodded. "Now what?"

Steve tried to catch a deep breath and gritted his teeth to tame the throbbing. "You're gon…gonna re-inflate a lung by…by dri…driving that spike…into my chest," Danny cringed at the thought, "right here," Steve indicated with his finger.

"You…have got…got to be…be kidding me?" Danny forced out between a coughing fit. "You want me to impale you?"

"It's the…it's the only way, Danny or else…or else I won't…won't last long."

Danny attempted to regulate his breathing following the coughing bout that zapped most of his energy. He closed his eyes, grimacing at the smart in his own lungs caused by the dusty air that was gradually choking him. "Well, well what if…what if I miss?" he stuttered pantingly with a mortal fear of killing his partner.

"You w…won't. Come on, Danno, you…you can do it," he rasped, breaths itching as he felt his throat narrowing and his chest constricting. "Hurry."

Danny knelt down by Steve's right side and took hold of the hard twig with an unsteady hand, clenching a tight fist around it as he applied the spike on the chest over the crucial spot. He folded his left hand around his fist to provide additional strength and closed his eyes to summon his courage but in vain. "I can't," he whimpered.

"You have…you have to or I'll...I'll die." Steve beseeched with a dying breath.

Again Danny wavered. Sweating bullets and gulping air furiously, he strove to get the job done.

"DO IT!" Steve rasped out with all the strength he could muster to spur Danny on.

Danny gritted his teeth and sent a silent apology before jamming the spike into his friend's chest with one powerful thrust. Steve cried out in pain and took a deep searing gasp, relieved that oxygen was finally pushing into his right lung. He reached his right hand out to his traumatized partner kneeling limply and breathlessly on the ground with his head hanging low. "See! Nothing to it."

"Says the crazy Neanderthal animal."

Steve managed a small squeeze on Danny's arm. "Dan...ny, you had...had to...do it," said the grateful SEAL with ragged, wheezing breaths. "You saved me from...suf...suffocating to death." Danny simply nodded but did not pry his eyes off the ground.

"Help me up."

"No! You're staying down."

"Danny, we've got...we've got to find...a way out of here."

"I'LL find us a way out of here. You just…you just stay put."

"Come on," Steve insisted, holding out his right arm for Danny to grab it. As he proceeded to elbow himself up on his left arm, he yelped, "Argh!"

"What's the matter?"

"My shoulder's busted," Steve hissed, grabbing his arm to keep it immobile while the smart subsided.

"Man, you really did a number on yourself."

"Hey, I don't...don't do things halfway remember," he threw a touch of humor with a crooked grin that Danny could perceive in the dim glow of his watch light.

"Uh huh."

"Have you...have you ever reset a disl...dislocated shoulder before?" Steve asked breathlessly through gritted teeth. Try as he did he could not tame the increasing intensity of pain radiating down his arm.

"Can't say that I have." Danny replied through a painful cough that prompted him to grab chest.

"Well partner, you...you're about to learn," Steve wheezed out, his breathing coming in shallow raspy gasps. Although he was breathing easier than before, he knew that he needed to ration the air coming though the tiny pipe.

"Do I look like a doctor?" Danny raised an attitude.

"Consider it a...a crash course in med..medicine."

"I don't think I should. What if I miss?"

"Danny you just...," he gulped in a breath, "you drove a stick through my chest. This is...nothing. Besides it's an...an anter...anterior dislocation. No big deal. In fact I just...just need," Steve cringed as a wave of agonizing pain shot through his chest. Danny quickly grabbed hold of the twig to hold it in place. "I need you to assist me and I will...I will do the rest."

"Steve, I can't..." Danny bellyached, trying to reason with the stubborn SEAL but Steve interjected.

"You don't...don't have a choice, pal. If I stay…stay like this there could be…there could be permanent damage."

"Fine, you're right," Danny huffed out in exasperation with a small cough sneaking up his throat.

"I'm always right," Steve wisecracked to lighten the mood but received a glare instead, one that was hardly noticeable in the dark but that he nevertheless felt boring a hole through him. "And you keep whin…keep whining about get...getting your revenge for...for all I've put you through during our par...partnership. Well there's your chance."

"That would be hilarious if you weren't in actual pain." Danny hardly appreciated the dark humor in Steve's statement. Truth be told he would jump at the prospect to get a playful revenge, but he figured more along the lines of using the picture of Steve with long hair and certainly not inflict him more harm than he already had. Right now he only wished for him to survive this plight. "Okay, tell me what I have to do? Wait! Let me turn on the light on your wristwatch so I can see my way better."

Steve began teaching Danny through the specifics and soon after, they heard a pop.

Steve's nostrils flared and his cheeks puffed in and out as he toiled to dull the pain with even breaths. He held his forearm as he gently and cautiously rotated his left arm. "Yeah, that's better," he expelled in relief at being able to freely use his arm without any shooting pain, though a stinging soreness lingered. "Now help me up."

"No!" Danny seethed. "You lie down while I check you over."

"I thought you said you were...weren't a doctor?" he teased with a half-hearted smile that failed to reach his eyes as the pain in his chest increased tenfold, but he managed to keep a stoned face to avoid tipping Danny off.

"Be quiet!" Danny snapped, eliciting a hacking cough that eventually subsided but not before sending a wave of lancinating pain throughout his body. He then proceeded to assess his partner's injuries, starting with the legs. "Do you feel my hands on your legs?"

"Yeaaah," Steve managed timidly, dreading the outcome of Danny's examination. He was in conceivably greater pain that he cared to admit.

"Legs appear okay. No broken bone that I can feel at my end. How about you? Do you feel any pain when I grope them?" an ominous silence was his answer. "Steve?" Danny insisted. "Hey, you still with me?"

"Yeah...yeah I'm still here," he mumbled with a pronounced shortness of breath and through a mask of pain that Danny was quick to notice when he flashed the light in Steve's face.

"Don't you dare play Superman," Danny rebuked. "Your face is pinched. Come on, where does it hurt beside your shoulder and chest?"

"I'm not really sure," was the tentative reply. "Help me sit up, will you?" Steve held out his right hand while keeping his left arm nestled to his abdomen to avoid jostling his sore shoulder.

"What about that thing sticking out of your chest?"

"I'll be all right as long…as long as I keep it immobile," he assured, though his laboured breathing clearly betrayed his statement.

"Take it easy, dammit!" Danny was beyond incensed at his restless partner.

"Danny please. We'll argue about…about this later. Now help me sit up."

"Damn stubborn freak," Danny muttered peevishly underneath his breath. "Hold on." Danny sat on his heels to get leverage before pulling Steve to a sitting position. "How's that?"

"Yeah, feels okay," he fibbed.

"Steven it may be pitch dark but I can always sense when you're lying to me. You must have," his breath itched, "you must have taken a good thirty to fifty feet free fall, and you tell me that all you have is a dislocated shoulder and collapsed lungs?" Danny wasn't duped.

"Well what about you?" Steve reciprocated on a similar snappy tone, though barely above a raspy whisper. "We took a tumble together and yet…yet you sound like you don't…you don't have a scratch on you."

"I was lucky. I suspect I had something soft to land on. Otherwise I surely...surely would have awakened dead," Danny ended with a dash of humor.

"What was it?"

"Our friendly offender. He's back there," he indicated with his thumb, the gesture causing a sudden unexpected twinge to shoot down his spine. He brought a hand down his back to rub at the tender spot. "You can't see him," he hissed through gritted teeth.

"Dead?"

"Oh yeah," he heaved out painfully. "Cracked skull. I woke up next to him with sore muscles and angry bruises. My head might feel like...like there's a thousand sledgehammers banging in unison and got...got a few cutting thorns in my back but aside from that...I'm just peachy. You on the other hand weren't so lucky."

"I'm telling you Danno, I'm fine." Steve puffed out annoyingly.

"Now where have I heard that before?" Danny returned snidely.

"I remember land...landing on something soft so it's safe to say…that I used that guy as a cushion myself, reason why…why I survived that fall. And then..."

"And then what?"

"You landed flat on my stomach."

Danny's breath caught in his throat. "I did?"

"Yeah. I took the brunt of your weight."

"Crap!"

"You're welcomed," Steve joshed before a violent coughing fit gripped him.

The ensuing wheezing and choking gasps for air were unmistakeable. Danny turned to the shadowy silhouette and shone the light in its face to notice the trickle of blood on the corner of the mouth. "That's blood, isn't it?"

"Yeaaah." There was no denying his dire condition. "I think I'm busted inside. Feels weird. I might have...might have cracked ribs as well. Guess it could have... been worse without the vest," Steve rasped out before another coughing fit sapped him of a great ounce of energy and put additional weight on his sore shoulder. "Will you help me out of this vest?"

Danny did Steve's bidding, careful not to jolt his shoulder. "How's that?"

"Better. Thanks." Steve breathed out but Danny wasn't fooled. His friend was is far worse shape than he allowed him to see. The gurgling sound was clear evidence that he was slowly drowning in his own blood. Danny marveled at how it was that Steve could discard a life-threatening injury as easily as a mere chest cold. Granted he had been trained to withstand pain and torture, but the blond was nonetheless annoyed at the lack of regard for his own life.

"Could you help me up?" Steve held out his good arm for Danny to grab it but he never did. "What's the matter?"

"I think you should stay down."

"Danny!" Steve started to protest.

"Babe, really, I think it's best for both of us to stay at ground level. We don't know where we are and...and we could do ourselves more harm than good standing up. Crawling on all four is...is our best option at this point."

"Guess you're right," Steve said, then heard a small titter. "I said something funny?"

"You said I was right."

"Believe it or not Danny you...you sometimes make sense," Steve ribbed.

"Only sometimes?"

"Yeah only sometimes. Okay if we want to see...see where we are and...and how to get out of this trap, we..we need to build a fire to get...get more light in here."

"You're suggesting what?"

Steve blindly groped the ground beside him. This world of darkness felt all too familiar to him and he toiled to chase the raw memories away of his recent bout with total blindness. "There has to be twigs lying around. Gather some to build the fire."

"And then what? We rub two sticks together to ignite a spark?" Danny quipped at the inane plan.

"Oh good you've done this before." Steve smirked. "Or we could strike two…two stones together. But I have a better solution to our...to our quandary." With a quavering hand, Steve reached inside his cargo pants pocket, hissing as his wounds objected to being jostled, and produced a set of matches. "Voilà!" he boasted. "Always come prepared for…for emergencies."

"Where are the flashlight, the rope, the bandages?" Danny splashed back with his own satiric wit.

"Sorry. Must have…must have left those in my backpack and darned! I for…I forgot to bring it with me." Steve was quick to throw the ball back into Danny's court. "Now get to work."

"Yes Commander!" Danny teased with a mocked salute.

While Danny set to work at gathering fire wood, Steve took advantage of his partner being out of eyesight to breathe away the escalating pain in his chest and belly. He held back a gag and dry heave in order to avoid tipping Danny off on his declining condition. He wiped the foamy blood from his mouth and mentally conditioned himself to tame the pain, succeeding barely just as his partner returned with the goods.

"Here," Danny said as he dropped the twigs on the ground next to Steve. "That's all I could find."

"That'll do it for now."

"Why don't we use a piece of clothing to fuel the fire?"

"The fumes can be toxic and until…we know where we are, we ca…we can't risk getting asphyxiated."

"Good point. Guess that's why you're the leader."

"You would have thought of it yourself." Steve licked his parched lips while desperately trying to ease down his erratic breathing.

"Yeah but perhaps too late to realize what a moron I was." Danny struck a match against a rock and charily took the flame to the dry twigs that instantly lit up.

Steve cringed at another excruciatingly painful twinge. The tingling sensation in his throat triggered a coughing bout that expelled a great amount of vomit mixed with blood.


	3. Chapter 3

"That coughing's bad," Danny observed worriedly. "And that blood, man, you'd better lie down."

"We can't dwwwwwell on it. We must find a way out of here or...or we're bothhhh doomed." The flickering flame was now casting a shadow against the walls and enabled Steve to assess the surroundings. "I think we can see enoughhhh to walk around. Help me up, will you?"

"You just belched out a half pint of blood and you're lungs are screaming for air and you want to walk around? You're not strong enough."

"We'll find out." Steve held his good arm up for Danny to give him a hoist up. "Danny, please."

"Why do you...," he started but then he realized it was useless trying to argue with that knucklehead. "What's the use!" With an annoyed sigh, he reluctantly assisted Steve to his feet. "You okay?"

"So far so good." he puffed out, and slapped his good hand to his chest to hold the makeshift pipe as steady as possible. He took a moment to find his balance and breathe away the queasiness in the pit of his stomach.

"Could be an old well," Danny surmised from the enclosed area.

"Too wide for that. Looks more like…like a cave or an abandoned...underground mine. We most…most likely came down a...a ventilation shaft." Steve inferred while looking upward at the hole through which they fell.

"Hey! Anybody up there?" Danny shouted at the top of his lungs, which triggered a searing cough.

"Save your breath, Daniel. I doubt…doubt anyone can hear us. It's too far up and I can't...can't even see an opening."

"I estimate about thirty to fifty feet down?"

"Could be. Sure felt like...like a lonnnnng stretch coming down." Without warning, vertigo seized him and he instinctively grabbed onto Danny's arm for support.

"Hey? You okay?" Danny wrapped his arm around Steve's waist to hold him up. "I was right. You'd better stay down."

As Danny proceeded to lower Steve to the ground, the SEAL quickly rebounded but kept leaning on Danny for leverage. "I'm good. Looking up made...made me dizzy for a sec."

"Babe, come on, don't push it. Those collapsed lungs aren't helping you get the oxygen you need. And really Steven, can you afford to lose anymore brain cells?"

Danny's typical humour tickled Steve's funny bone and he couldn't help but let out of small chuckle that he sorely regretted, as it seared his chest. He slapped a hand to his ribs to hold the stick in place.

"Sitting down is your best option to keep the air pumping in. Got to save your strength."

"Danny, we can't stay idle or...we'll die down here." Glancing at his partner, Steve noticed a dark stain on the side of Danny's shirt. "What's that?"

"What?" Danny followed the direction of Steve's finger.

"Man, you're bleeding!"

"Just a gash," Danny dismissed as benign. "A branch must have spiked me. No big deal. It hardly hurts," he lied.

"Says the pot...pot to the kettle, right?" Steve joshed, holding back a gurgling laugh. "Say do you have your phone on you?"

Danny reached into his trousers pocket and pulled out a broken iPhone. "I do but as you can see it's out of order. What about yours?"

Steve shook his head. "Must have dropped mine while I was...struggling with our suspect over there," he said breathlessly, jutting his head in direction of the bloody corpse. "Besides I doubt we have coverage down here."

"Oh well this is just great! Just peachy! Frances is going to have a fit." Danny raved and ranted, throwing his arms in the air in frustration, only to flinch at the pain the motion caused. "But I'll tell her this is all your fault," he seethed through teeth set in suppressed fury while rubbing his sore back.

"My fault?"

"You dragged me into this chase!"

"Hey! I didn't twist...twist your arm. You could have chos...chosen to…to sssstay behind and not foll...follow me!" Steve argued, also cringing at the pain that his bawling inflicted.

"Yeah right! And leave the danger magnet out on his own? I know you'd...you'd get into some jam and if I'd stayed behind she...she would have killed me for sure for... not keeping an eye on you."

"Don't worry about it. I'll apologize for...for being a jerk, she'll... apologize for yelling at me and... we'll make up," Steve winked wolfishly.

"Oh that's pathetic, Steven," Danny said with a mocked disgust.

"Come on, Danno! I bet you're looking forward to," he briefly paused and squished his eyes shut at the wave of pain washing over his chest,"...to doing the same with Karen."

"She won't be mad at me for being the minder of a big goof!"

"Daniel, you talk too much." Danny rolled his eyes. "Now stop babbling nonsenssssse and help me…help me find our way out...out of here or…or the girls will be mourning us insssstead of kissing us."

Barely had they taken two steps forward that his head started swimming and he instinctively leaned heavily on Danny.

"Whoa there, partner!" Danny held onto Steve who took a moment to breathe away the wooziness. "It'd be wise for you to sit this one out. I'll scour the field while you rest."

Steve shook his head vehemently and brushed Danny's suggestion aside with a wave of the hand. "No, I'm okay," he rasped out.

"Stop saying that!" Danny scolded. "You're obviously not okay. Now sit down. Take a break." Exasperated by his partner's denial of his condition, Danny took charge and eased Steve down on the ground against a rock wall, surprisingly without any resistance from him. "There! You sit for a bit. I won't go far." He took a minute to gather more twigs to keep the fire burning before going on his investigation.

Steve knew that he was fading fast. He could feel the blood gurgling down his throat and his lungs singeing with each single breath he drew. His broken ribs were on fire and his stomach was churning. Suddenly violent spasmodic cramps assailed his belly and he doubled up in pain. His stomach revolved and emptied its bloodied content.

Danny dove to his knees, cringing as the pain shot down his spine. He held Steve by the waist with one hand and placed the other on his chest while he vomited. Once his partner finished spitting out the last specks of vomit, Danny gingerly pulled him back to rest against the wall. Steve's head lolled heavily from side to side as he stove to gulp in deep breaths to fill his lungs.

"Hold on, Steve," Danny coaxed with a soothing hand rubbing the back of his partner's neck. "We'll get out of here."

Steve's eyes fleetingly rolled back into his head but he quickly snapped back to reality and compelled himself to remain calm and alert for both his and Danny's sake.

"You stay with me now Steven, you hear?"

Steve sucked in a gurgling breath and nodded. Every now and again he would cast a look Danny's way to see if he was any closer to finding an exit. Time was running out for both as the air became dustier and stuffier.

Danny ran his hands over the surface of the wall. He knocked on it and listened for hollow sounds that would indicate an air pocket. "It's solid rock." Ultimately his fingers inadvertently stumbled onto a switch and a door instantly slid open.

"Wow!"

"What?"

"The wall just opened. Must have hit a switch of something."

"What's behind it?"

Danny shone the light from his watch hoping to light the way. "It's too dark."

"Help me up."

"NO! You stay down. I'll go investigate."

"Danny please. I don't have the str...strengttttth to argue witthh you."

Danny emitted a grunt and reluctantly gave Steve a gentle hoist up and steadied him in front of the sinister void. "I can't see anything in there, can you?" Danny asked with a deep squint.

"No but...this is obviously our...our only way out of here."

"You think?" Danny was skeptical.

"I'll go in first," Steve volunteered but was held back.

"No! We BOTH go in together."

The two friends circumspectly stepped inside the dark hole with Danny's arm tightly wrapped around Steve's waist and the SEAL's right arm looped around his shoulders. With his sore left arm, he held steady the tube protruding from his chest.

Once they'd crossed the threshold, the motion detector triggered the light switch. Our two friends gaped in bewilderment before the impressive underground storage facility stretching as far as the eyes could see with rows of steel boxes of similar shapes and sizes.

"What the hell is that?" Danny gulped nervously as he dared ask the next question. "Are those caskets?"

"Well let's find out."

"Ah, on second thought maybe we shouldn't." Danny balked at the prospect of uncovering decaying corpses. "Let's just find a way out of here," Danny stressed, tugging at Steve's shirt.

However the Navy-trained commander in Steve had to satisfy his curiosity. "Help me lift the hood."

"Steve!"

"Danny, if they...they're dead they won't bite," he joshed to lighten the mood, which, contrary to his belief, had the opposite effect.

"Oh that stinks, Steven."

"So do corpsesssss."

"Would you just drop the morbid humor here!" Danny seethed with disgust, letting out a cough. "What I meant was that in our condition we sh...we shouldn't be lifting things."

"We'll just open one at a crack. Now will you help me?"

Danny growled and obliged grudgingly. Steve gripped the lid with his good arm while Danny took the full weight with both arms. They counted to three and lifted the hood in unison, wincing at the smart the effort alone caused.

Danny chose to look away while Steve inspected the content of the steel box. "You can look now, Danny."

"What is that?" Danny gasped in surprise.

"This is a Popeye missile," Steve stated from the parameters and model structure of the rocket. Again, he winced at another painful smart coming from his chest that prompted him to check if the tube was still embedded in his flesh. Then with his sore arm draped across his aching stomach, he slouched over to a second container and together with Danny, he lifted the lid to peek inside. "There's another one." He looked up from the case to let his hazy eyes glean over the dozens of similar containers.

"Steve, what...what the hell is this place?" Danny asked through a painful breath.

"Looks to me like...like an arms bunker."

"Abandoned from...from world war two?"

"I doubt it. Look at the footprints," he motioned to the ground, "someone's been in here recently. There are no...no cobwebs and the cases," Steve ran his fingers over the surface, "hardly have...have any dust on them, plus...plus which the light switch works. Moreover the missiles are... are in mint condition and not ob...obsolete."

"What are all those rockets doing... doing lying beneath the island?"

Steve shook his head, still in a trance-like state. "I'm not really sure, Danny." He was stumped for answers.

The door behind them suddenly slid close.

"We're trapped!"

"I don't think so. There must be...a control panel somewhere," Steve reassured as he continued to eerily contemplate the array of the deadliest gadgets known to mankind. His fascination with the surreal discovery had him momentarily dismiss his grievous injuries, but they soon came back with a vengeance and sent him collapsing to his knees.

"Danny!" Steve cried in agony.

Danny lunged at Steve and knelt down next to him. "Dammit! I told you to stay put!" He chided as he gripped Steve's hand and started coaching, "Breathe slowly. Come on. Easy. Easy."

Try as he did, he could not draw in enough air into his compressed lungs. With each painful intake, his belly screamed in agony and his chest burned. "I'm...I'm not gonna...gonna make it," he wheezed out, struggling to breathe.

"Yes you are! Don't you dare leave me a...alone in this God-forsaken place, I won't let you. You hear me, Steven?" When silence was his answer, he insisted with a strong squeeze on his partner's hand. "YOU HEAR ME?"

"Dannnn...tell Fra...Frances..."

"You'll tell her yourself. I'm not gon...I'm not gonna be your messenger boy," Danny's rant triggered a rattling cough that momentarily left him breathless. "Please Steve," he whimpered chokingly, noticing the unseen look in his partner's eyes and feeling him going limb. "Don't you give up!" He tapped him on the cheek to elicit a response. "Come on! Stay with me."

No sooner had Danny frantically checked the makeshift air pipe in his partner's chest that another powerful earthquake rattled the ground. Danny shielded Steve's body as a pile of rocks began raining down on them.


	4. Chapter 4

**_Words fail me. I am simply overwhelmed by all of your responses. This is putting a lot of pressure on me but I like it._ **

Mid-afternoon the next day, Chin was at the Honolulu airport waiting for Frances's plane to land. All inbound and outbound flights had temporarily been grounded due to a third consecutive powerful earthquake that shook Oahu and the surrounding islands. Luckily damage to infrastructure and buildings had been limited but the frequent incidences had the authorities on high alert.

He spotted Frances coming up the ramp and met her at the gate.

"Frances!" he hailed with a wave of the hand to attract her attention.

She glanced his way and smiled at the familiar face. "Chin!" she called out and clenched him into a hug. "S'good to see you. Any news?"

"Nothing yet. Do you have any luggage?"

"Ah, just a suitcase."

"So how was your flight?" Chin asked as he and Frances headed toward the baggage claim.

"Uneventful save for the three-something hours stuck on the tarmac at LAX. They say we couldn't take off because of another earthquake in Honolulu?"

"Yeah. The second consecutive 5.5 and higher in little over twenty-four hours. We also had a small one registering 4.2, an aftershock if you will. The epicenters are located within a seventy-five-mile radius of Waikiki occurring roughly in the same area. The seismologists are anticipating an imminent volcanic eruption. We're maintaining a direct line with the USGS and the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory."

"What's the damage?"

"So far the infrastructure and buildings are holding but they won't sustain any more pressure. If those quakes keep coming, it won't be long before we have a hecatomb on our hands."

They arrived at the carousel and waited for Frances's suitcase to roll their way.

"They briefly put the search on hold following the quake. Two members of the search team got injured by falling branches."

"Anything serious?"

"Enough to admit them to the hospital for sutures. Their conditions are not life-threatening though." Chin picked up Frances's suitcase and both made their way toward the exit.

"What do you have so far?"

"Nothing much, other than a muggy booth print, obviously belonging to Steve. But the subsequent rainfall washed away most of them. Therefore we have no clue as to which direction they headed. We scoured a large perimeter but we don't have any significant lead."

"Did they have their guns with them?"

"No. I expressly forbade them to pack heat. I didn't want them, especially a certain SEAL we know, to go all Rambo on us."

"But he did chase down that guy anyway?"

"He thought perhaps he could stop him with his bare hands. He can do that you know."

"Indeed he can." She turned to Chin who was stifling a titter. "What's so funny?"

"I imagine you being the force not to be reckoned with, especially around the house."

"You're right about that. But I do let him show off once in a while." Both shared a quick laugh at Steve's expense before turning earnest. "Look Chin. I want to apologize for the way I came down on you."

"Hey forget about it. You were right. It was my responsibility to watch them and I failed."

"You didn't fail, Chin, come on! You and I both know we can't keep Steve still, especially when a suspect is slipping through his fingers. His instincts kick in and he takes off regardless of the consequences. That's how he is."

"I should have insisted they stay put at the Palace."

"It might have been worse. Steve's a magnet for trouble. He would have found it elsewhere."

"Worse than having them disappear without a trace?"

"They could have been killed, whereas now we have a chance of finding them alive."

"Guess you're right," Chin agreed with a bit of reservation.

"Has the news hit the media yet?"

"No and we want to keep it that way for as long as we possibly can. There's no crime per say so that doesn't bring in big ratings. But if we don't find them soon, the vultures might get wind of it and they will start circling around, particularly if we bring in more reinforcement in the search."

"Who's involved?"

"So far Five-0 and HPD. We're holding off on calling a CSI unit since, technically, there hasn't been any crime committed. We're letting Max and his team call the shots as to whether they deem it necessary to bring in additional workforce on the field."

"What about the Navy?"

"They know about it. Needless to say the boys at Naval Intelligence are jittery. Navy Corps are on standby until further notice but I doubt we'll be able to hold them off very long. Steve is a high-profiled Commander with classified knowledge and they fear about State secrets being revealed under torture."

"Their qualms are misplaced and unwarranted as far as Steve's concerned. You and I both know he would rather die than disclose any confidential information and truth serum has hardly any effect on him. He's been well trained."

"I hope you're right."

"Besides it hasn't been proven that he and Danny were kidnapped."

"Right."

"What about family members?" Frances asked as they both reached Chin's car parked nearby.

"Mary has been notified," he informed while putting the suitcase in the trunk. "She was on a flight to Singapore when I called her. I left a message. She called back saying she'll catch a connection to Hawaii as soon as she can. We kept Danny's parents out of the loop for now until we have more to go on. As for Rachel, there's not much she can do except wait for news. We're keeping her abreast of the developments just as we're doing for Karen. Your sister's really anxious to see you."

"So am I. How is she holding up?

"As good as could be expected. She finds solace in the fact that dead or alive, Steve and Danny must be together and that thought alone is comforting."

"Yeah same for me and I sure hope we're right. Okay, let's swing by Danny's place so I can see her. Until we find them, she'll stay with me at Steve's house. Mary probably will too when she gets here. "

* * *

Governor Denning was incensed. He paced the length of his office like a caged animal, pondering whether or not he should appoint a new task force to tackle the case he'd assigned to Lieutenant Kelly. He understood and sympathized with the team having lost their leader and teammate so soon in the aftermath of the bombing that nearly killed them both, but he couldn't afford to allow the trail to grow cold on what was considered the biggest, most crucial case ever assigned to Five-0. Both CIA and FBI had sought his assistance in attempting to noose the number-two man of one of the largest drug cartels in all of America. Evidence tying the drug ring to the Yakuza had yet to be firmly established, and therefore the Feds hoped that Five-0 could uncover that missing link, if any. They had it on good authority that Derek Hawkins had planted roots in Waikiki and who better to investigate his whereabouts and eventually nail him than his own task force.

Now with McGarrett and Williams missing, the assignment was temporarily put on hold, which made the G-Men very restless. Denning tried to calm the barking dogs by exposing the situation happening in his own backyard, but it was in vain. They needed results fast and strongly suggested, or rather insisted, that Denning put together an interim team to work on the cartel case while the members of the existing Five-0 focused on their teammates' disappearance, which in itself was a formidable blow that had mobilized several authority departments on the island.

* * *

Meanwhile, somewhere in the deep recesses of Mother Earth, a high-ranking officer in his spotless Army service uniform made his way down a long winding corridor. He stopped at a steel door and swiped his security pass in the magnetic stripe reader to gain access inside the infirmary.

"General, Sir!" The lieutenant stood to attention in the presence of a superior.

"At ease, Lieutenant." He strode up to the first bed and cast the comatose patient a quick once-over before his sight settled on the second patient in the adjacent bed. "How are they?"

"It's bad, sir."

"How bad?"

"Enough to die," the Lieutenant doctor replied plainly. "Especially this patient," he said motioning to Steve.

"Weren't you able to mend their injuries?"

"We did to some extent, more so than had they been administered to a regular medical facility. Now it's up to them."

"Do you have their medical charts?"

The doctor reached for both patients' folders on the table and handed them to the imposing figure standing by Steve's bed.

"Did they have identification on them?" he asked while perusing Steve's medical record.

"Yes sir but giving their credentials I deemed it best to call them John Doe One and Two." The doctor waited for the general's reaction to Steve's military rank.

The Army officer barely flinched as he read out loud, "Lieutenant Commander Steven John McGarrett, US Navy SEALs."

"John Doe number two is Detective Daniel Williams. Both are from a Hawaii-based special task force called Five-0."

"Who else knows about them?"

"No one, sir. I've made certain of concealing their identities given the delicate nature of their occupation," the doctor confirmed.

The general flashed him an appreciative look and nodded obligingly. "I value your discretion, Doctor Brennan." His gaze shifted to Steve's face covered with multiples contusions and a breathing tube inserted between his bluish lips. "What's the damage?"

"The commander suffered a dislocated shoulder that he was able to reset himself but there was subsequent damage to the axillary nerves. However he shouldn't have any neuropathy as a result and therefore have full use of his arm. Aside from that, he came to us with a bilateral pneumothorax. He daringly managed to drive a makeshift pipe into the right lung to re-inflate it, which limited the damage to some extent and probably the reason why he's still alive. He also had three fractured ribs; ruptured liver and small intestine damage due to blunt trauma, but we managed to mend the injuries and we did a laparotomy to clean the abdominal cavity," he continued to expound as the general's eyes travelled to the bandaged head. "He has a mild concussion and there was the aortic dissection."

The Army officer's head jerked up and his brows knitted. "A large rock was pressing upon his chest, the dull impact understandably crushing his ribs and likely causing the tear in the inner wall of the aorta. It was tiny but enough for blood to seep out into the chest cavity. He was in full cardiac arrest when they brought him in. We quickly administered a blood transfusion to compensate for the decreasing supply to his organs. All things considered he's most fortunate we found him when we did. Another twenty to thirty minutes and it would have been fatal."

"Did you use the laser to cauterize the artery?"

"Yes we did and it was successful. We applied a small thoracic incision, thus sparing him from a sternotomy. He didn't require surgery for the pneumothorax. We merely inserted a chest tube to relieve the pressure and drain the blood from the thoracic cavity. We did an endotracheal intubation to assist in his breathing. Pulse ox is at 86 but rising. No fever so far but we're monitoring his condition for signs of infection."

The general nodded his understanding before taking a gander at the second patient.

"The detective's spine was crushed on the right lumbar side, causing dislocated vertebrae and severed nerves. We decompressed the cord and immobilized the vertebrae. We also succeeded in reestablishing the neuronal connections and therefore he should be able to walk. He suffered a mild concussion and his body's covered with lacerations and contusions. He has bruised kidneys but still functioning to about ninety per cent of their capacity. Aside from two fractured ribs and the dislocated vertebrae, there are no other broken bones or internal bleeding, which is no short of a miracle considering the condition in which we found him. We placed them both in an induced coma to relieve the swelling and decrease the intracranial pressure to avoid brain damage."

"Am I to understand that all those wounds weren't mainly inflicted by the earthquake?"

"Not if you consider the commander's injuries. He did reset his arm and re-inflate a lung. Therefore he had to have sustained the trauma before the heap of rocks fell on him."

"Try your best to keep them alive. I will want to interrogate at least one. And don't leak their identities to no one. Understood?"

"Yes, sir."

The general saluted his fellow officer and squaring his shoulders, he turned to march out of the infirmary.

* * *

The five-star general returned to his imposing office and sat behind his desk, which was a wide flat screen panel with computerized chips embedded within the table with finger-touch control. He keyed in the data mainframe to access Steve's private file. What he read pushed every conceivable panic buttons. He then punched in a few numbers on the speaker box.

"Yes this is General Nyland, here. I want Computer Hacking Forensic to run a full diagnostic of the complex mainframe. We may have a security breach on our hands. (…) I'm aware that the alarm would have sounded if any unauthorized access had been detected, but we must consider the possibility that spies with specialized computer hacking training could have easily crypto bypassed the server's security settings. (…) Okay I want a full report on my desk before day's end."

He ended the call and returned to perusing the file with a stoned face void of any distinct expression. His dark brown eyes suddenly narrowed in contempt at the mention of Commander Joe White as McGarrett's Navy SEAL training and commanding officer. "Well I'll be," he muttered spitefully at the thought of the Navy Commander possibly being the mastermind behind the break in.

A red light silently flashed on his desk. He touched the panel to activate the camera outside the door to identify his visitor. "Well, what do you know? A coincidence? I think not," he sneered sarcastically and wavered whether to open the door to his surprise guest. Following a few seconds of deliberation, he chose to activate the opening mechanism. The door slid open and in emerged the commanding officer in his pristine Navy uniform.

He stood behind the desk with a smug smile as he welcomed his guest. "Commander Joe White. What an unexpected surprise."


	5. Chapter 5

"Hey George, long time no see!"

"What are you doing here?" the general asked dryly.

"Could ask you the same question."

"Who gave you clearance?"

"I have my own for this outfit. You however are a little out of your way."

"Not really. I transferred to this facility three months ago."

"Really? I didn't know. Guess that's my own fault for not visiting more often. You miss a lot," Joe wisecracked. "You being here must mean they aborted Miranda?"

"No it's still on the grid. We moved the project's lab equipment and the staff to this location instead so I could fulfill both assignments simultaneously."

"What do you mean both assignments?" Joe was perplexed.

"I am General McCambridge's replacement."

"Since when?"

"Since his eradication."

Joe's eyes bulged out at the news. "Why? What did he do?"

"He was caught leaking confidential information to the wrong people at the National Defense."

"So they killed him."

"Of course. That's what we do to snitches down here. Let that be a lesson to you if you ever contemplate going down the same path."

"What would I gain by doing that?" Joe asked indignantly.

"You tell me," the general humored the commander with a dark scowl masked behind a cynical smile. "Bear in mind that you and the general are among the few freely allowed in and out of this complex."

"And for cause. McCambridge may have overstepped his boundaries but I on the other hand I'm perfectly aware of what's involved and what's expected of me. Crossing to the other side can be hazardous to your health. McCambridge found out the hard way."

"Indeed he did."

"So Miranda is still alive?" the general nodded. "If you ask me it'd be in their best interest to just kill it," Joe condemned.

"We've crossed the thin blue line. There's no going back," the general stated matter-of-factly. Inwardly though, he was wholeheartedly sharing the commander's discontentment. "The scope and objectives are justified."

"Says a bunch of militaristic xenophobic technocrats who want to rule the world."

"Joe, just what is the purpose of your visit?" the general queried on a petulant tone.

"I came to inspect the damage from the earthquakes. Speaking of which, incidentally, I find it alarmingly disturbing for the islands to be rocked by three successive tremors within a few hours apart, with two registering higher than five on the Richter scale," the commander inferred. "Tsunami warnings are going off but thankfully none occurred."

"Just what are you insinuating?"

"That those boys wouldn't be playing with fire, now would they?" he said on a caustic accusatory tone.

"I wouldn't know but I do have it on good authority that HAARP has resumed tampering with the weather patterns."

"And we wonder why it's snowing down in Brazil and pouring down in the Arizona desert," the commander pushed the snide remark. "Although I doubt the recent quakes are the result of some electromagnetic test trial. If they're not careful they're liable to sink the islands."

"If that's their intention do you honestly believe we can stop them?" the general hinted sardonically with a quirked eyebrow. "Then again it could be Mother Nature unleashing her wrath."

"Yeah, right," Joe smirked. "We're not that naïve, are we? So what's the damage?"

"It's mostly cosmetic. The repository took a big hit, though." General Nyland said while looking down at the still pictures of the arms depot on the desk screen.

"It's no wonder. That installation is worn out and might I add not deep enough. They should have stashed the commodities at least a good two hundred feet underground. How bad?"

"It's holding, for now. The goods are intact and we found three men down there with no security clearance," he informed, lifting his eyes to meet Joe's as he expected him to display some uneasiness.

"How did they get there?"

"We're looking into it."

"Where are they now?"

"One is dead and the other two are being treated in the infirmary."

"Infirmary?"

"Yes. They were grievously injured during the last earthquake yesterday. We found them buried under a heap of rocks."

"Do you know who they are?"

"As a matter of fact I do," he replied sarcastically as he keyed in the database to retrieve the dead man's file. "One is Haiko Mahalo."

"What?" the commander reacted to the name.

"You know him?"

"We've been after the sonuvabitch for years. He worked for one of the Yakuza top syndicates before he fled the coop. We recently got word that he was recruited for the Hawaiian faction of one of the largest drug cartels in America."

"Well now you don't have to worry about him. He's dead."

"Good!"

"The two survivors are law enforcement officers from a task force called Five-0."

Joe's head snapped up. "Five-0?"

"Uh-huh. One is Detective Daniel Williams and the other is…"

"Lieutenant Commander Steven J. McGarrett."

"That's right. Says here you were once his training and commanding officer in the Navy SEALs."

"That's correct," Joe answered proudly.

"Well what do you know? A stool pigeon." The general rebuked with an evil eye. "Perhaps their being here is not so fortuitous after all."

"I swear he doesn't know about this place. Do you think I have a death wish of something?" Joe retorted. "They'd zap me out of existence just as they did McCambridge if they knew I'd leaked anything."

"True. So you're saying their presence here has nothing to do with you?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying. And they're not spies if that's what you're thinking. Look, let me talk to them. See what I can find out."

"At the moment they're in no condition to speak." Joe frowned inquisitively. "They are both held in a drug-induced coma due to a trauma to the head among other life-threatening injuries."

"But not beyond repair, right?"

"We did fix the damage to a certain extent, courtesy of our team of elite surgeons. Their medical history however indicates that they barely survived a car bombing last year. Their bodies are still on the mend. We may be on the far-end of cutting-edge technology and able to perform miracles in medical science down here, but the fact remains that the subsequent self-healing process is inherently specific to each individual human being, meaning we must wait and see how they respond to treatment. We have no influence whatsoever."

"I don't know about that," Joe said with a tinge of sarcasm. "I've seen them artificially speed up that process with some patients."

"Yeah and the end results were all but tragic. Nature is still master of many domains that man has yet to conquer."

"So, what do you intend to do with them? Recruit them as new players on the game board once they've gone through the memory wipe?"

"I was leaning toward Miranda."

Joe's features suddenly pinched and wrinkled. "Wait, you're not seriously considering using them as test subjects?!" The general looked away, ill-at-ease. "You can't! Besides they're damaged goods."

"That's precisely why they're perfect. In an all-out war our government won't think twice about deploying militia, which includes non military civilians and inactive soldiers previously wounded in combat. It is imperative to test the vaccine on those specific subjects to see if they can survive the brew."

"Use Williams if you must but don't hurt McGarrett."

"I have no intention of hurting either one of them!" the general resented the accusation.

"Yeah, right," Joe mocked. "This is the third test trial and we all know what happened with the last two?"

"I know where I went wrong and I've addressed the variance since."

"Why couldn't you have figured it out BEFORE injecting the vaccine into those poor bastards?"

"Are you insinuating that I enjoy doing that? It's for our country's survival!"

"Bull shit!"

"Well you're one to talk! You have the nerve to disparage my experiments, seeing how you're at the helm of possibly one, if not, THE most lethal conglomerate of criminal syndicates in the world."

"Contrary to popular belief down below I do not run the Yakuza. Each syndicate is governed by a family boss."

"Which in turn reports to you."

"Not to me but to Shelburne."

"Oh, sorry," the voice dripped with cynicism. "Unlike the Yakuza we work for our country, not against it."

"Big deal, you murder people in the name of democracy and science, aka totalitarianism and butchery," the hard-edged general bristled at the snide remark. "It's a distinction without a difference. And for your information, in our organization we purge the delinquents, not innocent citizens."

"Really?" The general sounded incredulous.

"It's that asshole Wo Fat that's given us a bad name. Luckily he's behind bars and we've done well since that thorn was pulled out."

"Guess we both have our crosses to bear," the general observed composedly to ease down the mounting tension between the two men. "So why is McGarrett so important to you? It can't be mainly because you were his mentor in the Navy?"

Joe shifted his weight uncomfortably on his feet and avoided the general's inquisitive stare, as he pondered whether or not he should disclose the well-kept secret. Following a deep cleansing breath, he confided demurely, "He's my son."

The general's eyes dropped to the file displayed on his desk. "His file doesn't mention you as the father."

"That's because no one knows."

"Does he know?"

"Yeah, I told him."

"I don't like it, Joe. You know the drill? In this business we're not allowed to feel or display any emotion whatsoever with family, friends or otherwise."

"I know. Just let me speak to him. See what I can find out."

"I don't recommend it."

"I know McGarrett. He won't willingly confide in strangers. My way you save time and avoid any means of torture." Joe slanted his head to gauge the general's reaction to his request. "Listen, what's the worse that can happen? He's trapped and condemned to death either way we proceed, right?"

There was a tense pause before the general acquiesced with much reluctance. "All right, I'll allow it. I'll green light Doctor Brennan to momentarily bring McGarrett out of the coma, but be careful not to step out of line. We'll be watching you," came the final warning with a steely glare.

"I'm sure you will," Joe hit back with a challenging, smug look.

"Don't taunt me, Joe," the general snarled between his teeth, trying not to lose his temper at the seemingly provocation. "I mean it. You do anything to jeopardize this outfit, then you'll leave me no other choice but to order your son's death on the spot."

The smirk quickly disappeared as this was no idle threat. "I understand. But isn't that what you intend to do once the tests are over?"

Scorching glares fastened onto to each other, barely blinking as both bullheaded men held their own.

* * *

The next day at the Palace, Kono made her way to the briefing quarters where she found Chin hunched over the smart table, raking through the latest pieces of information sent by the ground unit.

"No luck with Mahoma. He either doesn't know anything or he won't say where his partner took Steve and Danny," she informed.

"Bet you a hundred that it's the latter."

"Duke is keeping him on ice until Internal Affairs get here. Perhaps they'll have more luck than we had."

"Let's hope so," he sighed dejectedly with both hands leaning heavily on the smart table. "Steve and Danny are running out of time."

"Got anything on those two?" Kono asked as she craned her neck to get a gander at the opened files Chin was studying.

"Merely names and lots of speculations. Nothing tangible. Don't have evidence to tie 'em to the Yakuza but ten cents it'll get you a dollar they are." Chin clenched his fist and banged it against the table to vent his frustration over the gridlock. "Dammit!"

"Chin, calm down. We have to stay focused."

"You're right." He pushed out a long shivering breath and composed himself. "You're right."

In her spotless Navy uniform, Catherine Rollins made her way up to the Five-0 headquarters briefing room.

"Hello Chin, Kono,"

Both turned to the voice and gaped in surprise. "Catherine!"

"What a pleasant surprise!" Kono smiled genuinely.

"I hope you don't mind my showing up unannounced?"

"No, of course not! Why would we?" Chin said.

"Well seeing how Steve and I broke up, I didn't think I'd be welcomed on the premises."

"That's the silliest thing I've ever heard! Steve doesn't hold grudges with his friends and neither do we. Granted he was hurt when you two split up but he doesn't resent you," Kono assured.

"That's comforting to know," the young lieutenant said fondly with her eyes glinting, enough for Chin and Kono to suspect a flame was still burning deep within.

"So how are you and …"

"Peter and I split up," she informed bluntly with a dash of bitterness.

"Not the real deal, was he?" Chin inferred knowingly.

"Something like that." She then quickly veered off subject when it became apparent that her lingering feelings for Steve were spilling out. "I heard about the bombing and…well…so many times I wanted to call to inquire about Steve's and Danny's condition but I didn't think it was appropriate under the circumstances."

"You needed not worry. I'm sure Steve would have appreciated a call from you."

"Now that my CO has finally granted me some off-duty time, I decided to come and visit with Steve. I dropped by his place earlier thinking he'd be home convalescing, but there was no answer. So I figured he was back at work already."

"You didn't hear?" Kono asked, glancing at Chin worriedly.

"Hear what?" The cousins' somber expressions triggered her panic button. "What's going on?"

"He and Danny are missing."

"Missing? How? Where? When?"

"They sprinted after a fleeing suspect. We got separated. Then they didn't report back. It was two days ago up in Maunawili Valley," Chin explained.

"Does Naval Intel know? I wasn't told about it."

"They know but they are keeping it under the radar for now."

"Anything I can do to help?"

"I doubt it but you could ask Lieutenant Commander Nyland over there," he suggested, pointing to Frances sitting behind her office desk, talking on the phone. "She's leading the investigation."

"Lieutenant Commander. She's Navy?"

"Yeah. She's also our new recruit."

"So the governor assigned you another babysitter, huh?" Catherine smirked, "How did Steve take it?"

Kono glanced at Chin quizzically.

"Ah no, in fact it was Steve who hired her as our new team member and," Chin wavered a bit before dropping the news on her, "he and she are engaged to be married."

Kono shot him a scowl.

"Oh! I see. Well good for him! It's about time he settles down." Chin wasn't fooled by her unruffled reaction. It was obvious that the news had visibly shaken her. Whatever her intentions were for looking Steve up after all this time, she needed to be set straight on the current situation to avoid stepping on someone's grass. "She's one lucky woman."

"Yes she is."

A tense silence momentarily chilled the room before Catherine picked herself up and shone a strained smile.

"Okay, I'll speak with her. Thanks Chin."

"Why did you have to tell her that?" Kono scolded quietly, out of Catherine's earshot as she watched the lieutenant make her way to Frances's office.

"Why not? She has to know. Did you see the look in her eyes when she spoke of Steve?"

"That's not of our business."

Catherine knocked on the frame of the ajar door. Once Frances waved her in, the young lieutenant stepped up to the desk and stood waiting for her to finish her call. She would occasionally cast furtive glances at the sparkling diamond engagement ring that adorned the woman's left-hand ring finger; a painful reminder that her ship had sailed without her.

"I see (…). He won't talk, huh? (…). Okay let me know if the guys at IA have better luck at getting the scum to spill his guts. Otherwise I might get a crack at him. Say Duke, can you send me the map of the perimeter you've combed so far? (…) What about the forensic canines? Are they on site? (…) Great! (…) What? (…) It's okay. I told Karen and Mary they could drive there ahead of me to help with the search. Is there a problem? (…) Okay I'll be there in an hour or so. Thanks Duke." She hung up and frowned inquisitively at her visitor.

"Lieutenant Commander Nyland?"

"Euh yes. Do I know you?"

Catherine moved closer to the desk. "I'm Lieutenant Catherine Rollins."

"Lieutenant Rollins, of course!" Frances exclaimed cheerfully as she stood to shake Catherine's hand. "I've heard so much about you."

"You have?" Catherine ventured to ask, dreading how Steve must have painted an unflattering picture of her.

"Indeed. Steve spoke very highly of you."

"He has?"

"You sound surprised?" Frances observed amusedly.

"Actually yes. He was rather miffed to say the least at how we parted ways."

"He said you agreed to remain good friends."

"Yeah but still."

"Believe it or not, he's very fond of you. There are no hard feelings."

"He's an incredible man." Catherine marveled at Steve's lack of resentment toward her.

"That he is," Frances sighed longingly with a small pinch in her heart, but then added a touch of humor to wash away the melancholia, "A bit obstinate at times but that's part of his charm."

"Don't I know it!" Catherine concurred with a wistful smile. "Chin tells me you're leading the investigation into Steve and Danny's disappearance?"

"Lead is a big word. No one is actually captain on board. We're all working together."

"Any leads?"

"Aside from a boot print, we haven't come up with anything substantial. Our best gamble at this point is that they were kidnapped but whoever did it managed to neatly cover his tracks. So far we're playing find-a-clue as to where they might have been taken and how. It's as though they were lifted off the face of the earth."

"Is there anything I can do? I have connections that might help."

"I've used mine at the FBI, Naval Intel and Interpol, hoping they might have had reports of shady activities in the area. So far we've come up with zilch. Our team on the ground is sifting a large perimeter where they were presumably last seen heading toward, and are narrowing down all plausible conjectures based on what they've recovered. There's not much to go on."

"I have a few days leave. I'm wondering if I can join the search?"

"I don't see why not?" Frances was all too happy to oblige. "We need all the help we can get. The Navy boys are getting restless and are hoping for a breakthrough in the case soon or they'll need to step in, seeing how Steve carries valuable confidential information in that head of his". Frances rounded the corner of her desk to stand before Catherine and extended her arm. "Welcome aboard, Lieutenant Rollins."

"Please, call me Catherine," she said as she shook Frances's hand to seal the deal.

"Okay, Catherine. Call me Frances."


	6. Chapter 6

Dreary off-white walls and a cold grey tile floor greeted the two visitors as they entered the two patients' dimly lighted room; a wide-spaced area resembling more of an experimental laboratory than an infirmary.

Steve and Danny lay in beds feet apart, hooked to respirators; the whooshing sound clashing with the constant beeping of the heart monitors. Their heads swathed in bandages and tubes snaking in and out of various parts of their bodies with bags of blood dangling above them.

Joe drew in a silent quivering breath while approaching Steve's bed. He stood over him with hands gripping the rail and took stock of the numerous devices keeping him alive. He flinched at the slightly blood-soaked postoperative bandage covering his chest and the ghostly pale, drawn features staring back at him. Beads of sweat pearled on the fever-ridden forehead and a mild flow of tears trickled down the corner of Steve's eyes; obvious signs that his battered body was in a life-and-death struggle.

"How are they fairing, Doctor?" Joe asked as he laid a gentle hand on Steve's forehead and flinched at the clammy warm skin.

"So far so good. It's still touch and go. We're keeping a close watch on the fever they've recently developed. Otherwise their conditions are stable and deemed highly satisfactory overall."

"What's the survival rate?" the general asked.

"We've now upgraded it at seventy-five per cent."

"That's good. I trust you haven't disclosed their identities to anyone?"

"No. I did as you ask, sir. They are still known as John Doe One and," he turned to Danny lying in the next bed, "Two."

"Commander White, yourself and I are the only ones who are privileged to that information and that must remain that way for now."

"I understand, sir."

"Would there be any immediate threat to this patient's condition," he motioned to Steve," if you were to bring him out of the drug-induced coma?"

"Like right now?"

"Yes. We need to ask him a few questions."

"I strongly advise against it. His heart is too weak to withstand the strain. Besides I don't think he can handle breathing without the endotracheal tube just yet."

"Can he handle it for a few minutes?" the general challenged.

The doctor wavered giving his truthful opinion and instead, answered from a strict medical standpoint, "Theoretically, yes he could. But there could be brain damage if we wean him off the drugs too soon."

"I understand that in the mainstream world this would be a complex medical procedure but not down here, am I correct?"

"Correct, but the risks still subsist."

"Do it," he ordered coldly with a loathsome apathy that earned him a scorching glare from the commander standing to his right. "It's imperative we speak with him now. Matter of security."

The seasoned lieutenant doctor glanced at Joe to shore up support that unfortunately the commander could not provide. "All right," he conceded reluctantly but added just the same, "You realize there's no guarantee that'll be able to speak, let alone carry on a conversation?"

"Bring him back anyhow," the general ordered unequivocally. "We'll see if he can handle it. If not, then you can put him out again."

"Yes, sir." Doctor Brennan reached for the intravenous line and proceeded to gradually decrease the dose of Pentobarbital coursing through Steve's veins while monitoring the EEG for patient responsiveness. "It should take a few minutes. I don't want to rush it."

"Perhaps we should wait till his condition's not so precarious? Why risk it?" Joe suggested.

"We already waited too long. We need answers now," the general stressed.

"Then leave me alone with him."

"Sorry Joe. No can't do."

"He won't say anything with you in the room."

"I'll blend into the background." The high-ranking officer retraced his steps to the entrance where he assumed a stand-at-ease position with hands laced behind his back.

Minutes flew by with the general getting impatient. "How much longer?"

"We can't hasten the procedure or we'll kill him!" Brennan exhorted, unwilling to jeopardize a patient's life over what he considered a trivial request at this point.

The pungent retort somewhat ruffled the self-righteous general's feathers but instead of a strong reprimand for defying a commanding officer, he chose to sit on his pride.

Joe remained at Steve's side patiently waiting for signs that he was breaking through the surface.

"He's coming around," Doctor Brennan informed as he prepared to remove the tracheal tube from Steve's mouth before he regained full consciousness. A small gag was all that the patient gave as the tube slid out of his throat. Brennan proceeded to suction the mucus from Steve's mouth and with a tissue, dabbed at the dribbling saliva.

Before Joe could speak, the doctor held a hand up. "Wait a few seconds for his breathing to stabilize."

All watched the patient struggle with the simple task of dragging a deep breath. Brennan's eyes darted back and forth from his patient to the heart monitor; his thumb flirting with the IV release switch, prepared to discharge a dose of medication at first sign of acute cardiac distress.

Once the breathing leveled out, Joe lowered the rail and leaned forward at the sight of the eyelids fluttering open to reveal two bleary eyes. "Steve? Can you hear me? It's Joe."

Two heavy blinks and a dry swallow later, out came the hoarse whisper. "Joe?"

"That's good, he remembers me. We can rule out amnesia," Joe said to Brennan before veering his attention back to the groggy patient. "Hey there, Steve," he greeted with a gentle hand on Steve's bare shoulder. "Long time no see. Any pain?"

"No. Kind…kinda numb," he breathed out, striving to keep awake.

"You're on heavy medication."

"Where am I?" Steve asked, his squinting eyes roving around the room nervously at the unfamiliar surroundings.

"Somewhere safe where they're taking good care of you," he said prior to casting a stern look at the collected Army man behind him who remained stoic.

"What, what happ…," Steve's voice trailed off from exhaustion. "Are the men okay?"

"The men? What are you talking about?"

He turned to Joe in a complete stupor. "Joe, tell me. Are…are they all right?" he began to hyperventilate as panic set in. "Did we…did we all make it out alive?"

Then it dawned on the commander that Steve was caught in a trance. "Steve, listen to me," Joe insisted, gently gripping Steve's heaving shoulder. "Calm down now. Easy."

"Please tell me," Steve whimpered. "Don't you…you dare shield me."

"Steve, son, there was no mission. You had an accident." When Steve failed to acknowledge, he nudged his shoulder. "Steve wake up!"

"What?" Steve frowned as he slowly emerged from his delirium.

"Do you understand? You had an accident."

"What...what happened?"

"I was hoping you could tell me. We found you and Danny looking a little worse for wear buried underneath a pile of rocks."

"Danny?" the very name sent his senses spiraling. He pinched his eyes shut and with a groan to boot, tried to muster the strength to move but the effort proved too taxing on his battered frame.

"Take it easy!" Joe chided with his hand pressing against the shoulder to keep him lying still. "Don't exert yourself."

"Joe, wher…where's Danny?" he gasped out.

"He's fine. Look to your right." Steve's breathing evened out upon seeing Danny lying sleeping in the next bed. "He's going to be all right."

The hazy, watery eyes squished tightly shut when a stinging sensation washed over his chest. He lazily brought a hand up to the sore area.

"You've had surgery." Joe drew Steve's hand away from the bandage on his chest. "Leave it alone. "Steve, think. What happened to you and Danny?"

Steve closed his eyes to jog his blurred memory but drew a blank. "I don…I don't remember."

"Think hard, Steve," Joe insisted for fear that the general would order the truth serum to be used on his protégé if he didn't get his answers.

Finally, a glimmer of recollection filtered through his addled brain and with a blank look, he whispered, "Fell down."

"Fell down? Where?"

Doctor Brennan observed a mild arrhythmia on the heart monitor, but held back voicing his concern just yet.

"Duct…something. Trap door," Steve mumbled.

"How? What happened up there?"

Steve was cast adrift on a sea of confusion. He struggled to keep afloat and breathe evenly. "Dan…Danny and I…chasing suspect." He paused to draw a breath and licked his parched lips. "Tackled him… to the ground and… struggled for gun." His breath itched and his eyes squinted as the next scene played in his head. "Earth shook."

"The earthquake?"

Steve nodded weakly, gasping in another somewhat painful breath. "Hole opened in ground. All fell in."

"That's it?"

"Tried… tried to find…way out." his breathing grew more laboured and his eyes bulged out at the sudden image forming. "Missiles." He turned to Joe with a hunted look and blindly reached for his arm. "Joe, what's...what's going on? What is this place?"

"Take it easy, Steve," Joe attempted to mollify at the sound of alarms going off. The general stepped forward, concerned.

"Why…why are you here?"

"Relax!" Joe grabbed a hold of Steve's hand. "You've got to calm down, Steve."

"I'm going to have to put him back under." Brennan waited for the general's nod of approval before reaching for the intravenous line to open the valve of Pentothal.

Joe watched Steve's eyes glaze over as he slowly drifted off; squeezing his hand until it grew limp and then gently set it on the mattress. Once Steve was completely down for the count, he turned to the general with a sneer. "Satisfied? You heard him it was an accident."

"I'm not so easily convinced, or fooled for that matter."

"He was telling the truth."

"What is this hole in the ground that I'm supposed to know about?" Frustration grew. "It wasn't mentioned in General McCambridge's files."

"Yeah, right," the commander snorted. "Like you should give credence to that drivel."

"Would somebody mind enlightening me?" the disconcerted general asked.

"You do know this was an old underground arms bunker abandoned from World War two?"

"Yeah."

"Originally the only channel was down the seventy-foot shaft and then through the concealed door hewn in the wall. When they discovered the chamber, they remodeled it and tunneled a more accessible route to the depot. Thereafter they allegedly removed the only access, which was a switch in the rock, and condemned the hole and sealed shut the trap door above. Obviously they purposely omitted to do it."

"Why?"

"Safe to suspect McCambridge's boys were using it to sneak inside the complex, hence the reason why it wasn't mentioned in his files."

The general was completely dumbfounded by those revelations.

"If I may, General," Brennan respectfully interrupted, "From a medical standpoint the injuries are more consistent with a long free fall."

"Okay for the sake of argument let's say the trap was triggered open. Surely they wouldn't have survived a seventy-foot drop?"

"It is feasible if they decelerated the speed by trying to grapple onto the sides during their descent, thus breaking the momentum of the fall. I gathered that they all fell on each other, with the dead man being at the bottom to cushion the ground impact and thus relieve a considerable amount of stress on their bones. This would also explain how McGarrett ended up with a dislocated shoulder and collapsed lungs that he was able to mend temporarily before the quake hit."

"Fair to assume the tremor inadvertently activated the trap mechanism when those three men stood at the wrong place at the wrong time," Joe brought forth.

Nyland sucked in a deep breath and stuck out a defiant chin. "I'll wait for security to hand me their full report. Then I'll decide what to do with them." On that snappish tone, he turned on his heels and left the room.

"What is his problem?" Joe complained to Doctor Brennan. "I think he's been sniffing his own glue. I've never known him to be so arrogant. He's always had a healthy respect for human life. This isn't the man I know."

"If you'll allow me, sir, I've been working on Miranda with General Nyland since the project's inception. He was ordered to surrender his own values and ideologies for the sake of the assignment and needless to say that goes against his nature, ergo the arrogance and sullenness. He was devastated when the first two trials failed, resulting in the lost of dozens of human lives. He's therefore resigned himself to playing by their rules and in order to avoid committing the unthinkable, he's erected this armor to thwart any emotion or feeling from seeping through."

Joe snorted in understanding. "Thank you, Lieutenant. I had forgotten that working for the underground government can be a bitch."

* * *

In mid afternoon, the search team was still actively combing the area with ground-penetrating radars when Frances and Catherine arrived together. Chin, Kono, Karen and Mary were already on site to lend a hand to the troop.

"Find anything?" Frances asked Chin.

"Nothing with the radars so far."

"What is the GPR depth range?"

"They estimate between twenty and thirty five feet down. That's about as far they can penetrate through a muddy soil."

"Where's Duke?"

"He's over there," he pointed to the Chief of police conversing with a dog handler who had a hard time holding back his two canines.

"Thanks." She walked over to him while Catherine stayed behind to talk with Chin.

"Duke."

"Frances!" He turned to the trainer, "Malo Kalohiwa, this is Lieutenant Commander Frances Nyland. She's in charge of the investigation."

"Nice to meet you, Commander."

"Likewise, I'm sure."

"Malo is the head of the lab forensic canine team."

She looked down at the two restless Belgian Shepherd Malinois frantically wagging their tails by their master's feet. She squinted suspiciously at their wild behavior; pulling on their leash, whimpering and yelping as though they were sensing an impending natural disaster. She squatted down to pat them. "What's wrong with them?"

"There's a hei'au nearby."

"An ancient burial ground?"

"That's right. Those dogs a specifically trained to trace the scent of decomposing flesh, which can be detected in the ground and surrounding area for up to a thousand years," the trainer explained.

"Who's to say they haven't picked up on our missing men? Didn't they get a whiff of pieces of their clothing?"

"They did and that's why we want to check it out. However our Hawaiian religion and culture forbids us to enter the hei'au until a kahuna blesses us and asks the spirits permission to step onto the grounds," Duke explained.

"I understand. Did you send for one?"

"Yeah, he's over there!" The HPD Chief pointed to the priest performing a chant to summon the spirits.

"How long will that take?" Frances queried rather impatiently.

"As long as it takes." Frances bristled at the dog handler's blunt reply and shot him an annoyed look that he didn't bother acknowledging.

She retreated to a nearby boulder and sat on it. She took out her bottle of water, twisted the cap open and swigged down a few healthy gulps, all the while keeping a wary eye on the Hawaiian priest whose mannerisms were strangely off-beam.

"Frances, what is she doing here?" Mary asked curtly.

"Who?"

"Catherine."

"She heard what happened and offered to help."

"I just bet she did!" Mary gnarled with teeth set in restrained annoyance.

"What's the matter?"

"I don't like her."

"Well obviously. What did she ever do to you?" she probed curiously as she casually took another gulp of water.

"She's a manipulative bitch that sank her claws into my brother once and I sure don't want a repeat." Frances broke into a chuckle, nearly choking on her water. "Don't laugh, I'm serious."

"I'm sorry."

"I just don't want her to ruin what you and Steve have."

"You don't trust your brother to do the right thing?"

"Him," she said jabbing a finger at her head, "maybe. It's him," she said, pointing to her groin, "I don't trust."

"Mary, if Steve and I are meant to be together, I trust his little head won't do the thinking for him," Frances humoured, amused by the McGarrett sibling's hissy fit.

"I wish I could believe that."

"If he's not done sowing his wild oats, then he's not mature enough to settle down. I'm with your brother because of what's in his brain and in his heart, not because of his money or his body."

Mary burst out laughing. "Did you tell him that?"

"Yes he knows. Although he is scrumptiously handsome in his Navy uniform or a black tux. Those are the times I see him as one dashing heartthrob. "

"Well you know what they say? Women do love a man in uniform."

"Indeed we do!"

"Assure me you won't give him up without a fight if Little Miss Muffet tries to move in on him?"

"Your brother is not a prize in a competition. If he decides that being with Catherine is what he wants, then what can I do about it? He's not my possession. Besides isn't Catherine in a relationship, reason why she and Steve broke up?"

"Yeah, you're right. Still it bothers me to have her here."

"Right now our main priority is to locate your brother and Danny and we need all available hand on deck."

Mary fashioned a thoughtful smile. "Do you realize that we've been speaking of Steve in the present tense?"

"Because we know in our hearts that he's still alive somewhere and we're going to find him and Danny," Frances said resolutely, taking Mary hand in hers to convey her optimism.

The cleric returned to the awaiting team.

"It is safe for you to enter the sacred grounds. However you are not to touch or move any of the stones."

"Rest assured that we will proceed in a gingerly fashion, and we won't touch anything unless it is absolutely necessary," Frances pledged.

"NO! You must not remove any of the sacred stones under any circumstances or you will anger the spirits," warned the man of the cloth.

"Frances, this is no laughing matter," Kono cautioned.

"My apologies if you believe I'm deriding your religious beliefs or profaning the dead, but right now spirits take a back seat to our friends who might still be alive," Frances snapped, her dark brown eyes glinting with wrath.

An awkward silence permeated the air and that idle reaction from her peers incensed her. "I don't believe this!" she gaped, utterly flabbergasted. "Are you actually allowing your superstition to dictate your conduct? We're talking life and death situation here!"

"We don't even know that they're still around these parts," Duke alleged in defense of their wariness.

"We don't know that they're not!" Frances was quick to retort. "Tell me this people. No disrespect and all, but if there were really ghostly spirits around here, don't you think the dogs would scurry off the opposite away with their tails between their legs? Look at them?" she peeved, irately pointing at the two fidgety canines by her feet. "They are raring to go inside the ring. They are obviously not sensing an ethereal disturbance roaming these grounds, but rather the presence of human remains or perhaps even our two men trapped somewhere in this area."

As her words began to sink in, all remained hesitant to speak up.

"I tell you what. I'll go alone with the dogs, I don't mind. And if some misfortune should befall me, I'll know someone's using scaring tactics and he," she angrily jabbed her finger at the priest, "will be the first one I go after. I've been part of many busts in supposed haunted houses and so-called sacred sites to know that they are the perfect niches for ganglords, knowing people are too damn scared to tread on the premises." She grabbed both leashes from the handler and reined in the dogs. "If I see something, I'll holler."

"Frances, wait!" Mary called from the back of the group and shouldered her way to her. "I'm going with you."

"You sure?"

"Me too," Karen said, stepping forward to stand by her sister.

"Count me in," Catherine sided with the sisters.

"We'll ALL go!" Chin chimed in, taking one leash from Frances. "You're right. This is Steve and Danny we're talking about. Makes me sick thinking that we hesitated."

Frances smiled appreciatively at Chin and patted his shoulder. "As I said I will respect the grounds as long as it doesn't limit our search for our two boys."

"I strongly doubt McGarrett would have readily stepped in a hei'au." Duke claimed.

"Bear in mind that Steve doesn't see, hear, smell of think when he's zeroing in on a fleeing suspect. I'm sure he didn't know."

Duke dipped his head in frustration knowing he was out numbered with all those stares bearing down at him. He sighed and reluctantly chose to follow the group.

The two whining and yapping dogs yanked at their leashes with such vigor that their collars nearly choked them. They dragged Frances and Chin along at a briskly pace to a particular area inside the hei'au where they stopped and buried their sniffing muzzles into the soil; their tails flicking back and forth as their paws began scratching the earth frenetically.

"They found something," Frances announced.


	7. Chapter 7

"What is it?" Mary asked.

"I don't know yet." Frances squatted down to the dogs' level.

"Something or someone must be under there somewhere." Karen surmised from the canines' reactions.

"Frances!" Kono shouted from a few feet away.

Frances stood and walked over to her. "Found something?" Kono held out an iPhone in her gloved hand. "It's Steve's, isn't it?" Kono confirmed its ownership with a nod. "We're definitely on the right track," she said with a renewed confidence.

"Frances!" Chin called out, waving her over.

"Got something?"

"Yeah. A gun. Could be the suspect's Steve and Danny were chasing after."

"Bring it to the boys at the lab. They'll dust it for fingerprints."

"Frances, come and take a look at this," Catherine called out from her hunched position by the two dogs.

"What is it?"

"Look at this," she pointed down to herbaceous plant stalks oddly bent inward in what appeared to be a tiny, barely noticeable cleft in the ground. As she pulled at one stem, it snapped.

Frances handed over the leash to Karen and squatted down to do a close examination. She dug her nails in the earth alongside the line of bent stems. "We need to dig deeper."

Chin handed his dog over to Duke who was visibly edgy at the idea of disturbing the grounds.

Frances caught a glimpse of the priest quietly stealing away from the premises. She stood and turned to Duke without unfastening her eyes from her suspect. "Duke, can you assign one of your men to follow that priest, see where he goes?"

"You don't trust him?"

"Call it a hunch. I don't even think he's legit," she said with deep furrowed brows.

"What makes you say that?"

"His mannerism. Doesn't fit the profile."

"I'll go myself if you don't mind. I'm...I'm a little nervous around here anyway," he stuttered nervously, shifting on his legs uncomfortably.

"I understand. You do what you have to do."

He nodded in gratitude and handed the leash over to Karen.

"Wait. If he sees you following him in a police car he might get suspicious. Here." She rummaged through her trousers pocket for her car keys and gave them to Duke. "Take mine. It'll be less conspicuous. I'll take yours back to the station and we'll swap cars there."

"Okay." He handed her his keys.

"And Duke, run a thorough background check on Father Molokai. See if you find a hidden skeleton."

"Got it."

"Frances, I think we've got something," Chin claimed, prompting Frances to sit on her heels.

"What is it?"

"Sink your nails in there." He motioned to a small depression in the earth.

Frances's fingers roamed over the surface before finding the tiny cleft.

"This tear couldn't have been made by the earthquake, now could it?" Catherine ventured a guess.

"I strongly doubt it. I'm no geologist but a seismic fracture generally has jagged edges. This crack is a straight line," Frances observed.

"A trap door?" Kono construed.

"What would it be doing on a sacred burial ground?" Chin asked, puzzled.

"A communal burial site maybe?" Karen launched her theory. "Or perhaps a mass grave?"

"We'll soon find out. Help me lift it up."

All took position and dug nails into the earth, latching on to the heavy plate that they attempted to lift in unison, but the lack of leverage made it an impossible task.

"Wait! This is wrong. The foliage is caught in. Therefore the door had to be pulled open from the inside. We need to push it in."

Their new attempt yielded no result.

"We're not going to succeed that way. There has to be a triggering mechanism to open that door and automatically shut it close, otherwise we would have fallen ourselves seeing how we're standing on top of it."

"Perhaps the tremor set it off by accident?" Catherine speculated.

"That'd be my guess. We need to hustle the artillery. Cranes, picks, shovels, the works."

"Wait a minute Frances! You cannot bring in heavy machinery onto these grounds without a valid permit," Chin informed.

"Well then let's get one," she urged impudently.

"It might take a while."

"Chin, Steve and Danny don't have a while!" she lashed out at the innocent man. Her emotions running high, she closed her eyes and buried her face in her hands in remorse at her outburst. She flushed out her frustration in a deep cleansing breath to come down a notch and repented, "I'm sorry."

Chin nodded his understanding. "Don't be. We're all worried and you're right. We can't afford to waste time."

"Listen, I'll make calls to speed up the process for the authorization. Meanwhile you get the manpower and stuff to dig by early tomorrow. I just hope it won't be too late."

* * *

On the ride to HPD headquarters, Catherine was deep in thought, sitting quietly in the passenger seat with an elbow resting on the window frame and her head leaning on her fist. A barely audible sigh escaped her lips, which made Frances take notice of her gloomy mood.

"We'll find him, Catherine" Frances emboldened, a sentiment directed at both of them.

"What's unsettling is not knowing what happened to him or where he might be. If he'd been kidnapped at least we would have heard from his captors."

"My best bet is that trap door. Unless he and Danny went through a space-time continuum vortex."

That amusing remark made Catherine's lips curl up. As she glanced over at Frances, her smile quickly sagged upon catching glimpse of the sparkling diamond engagement ring.

"So you and Steve are engaged?" she asked, trying to sound cheerful.

"How did you know?"

"Chin told me. Have you set a date yet?"

"No. We're taking it slow."

"Steve not ready to commit, huh?"

"It's not so much him as it is me. I want to make sure we're compatible in every aspect, well almost, before we take the plunge."

"I see. So when did you two meet?" Catherine queried, curious as to how this woman had come to promptly replace her.

"It was about nine years ago, during a mission in Bosnia."

"Isn't it the one during which he was taken prisoner?"

"The same."

"Funny, he never mentioned you," Catherine said with a dash of irony.

"I'm not surprised. We were barely acquaintances back then. Once we were released he wanted to hook up but I didn't encourage it."

"Why not?"

"I don't believe in long-distance relationships. They are often doomed to fail and I didn't want to go down that road with Steve."

"Don't I know it!" Catherine sighed jokingly, as she wholeheartedly shared Frances's sentiment.

"Once we were shipped back home we lost touch with each other until we reunited last year when I came to work on a case with Five-0. We sort of rekindled a flame that was surprisingly still flickering within us."

A fluttering bittersweet smile graced Catherine's lips. "You're lucky," she said wistfully. "He's a great man."

"Indeed he is so why did you let him go? He's quite a catch."

"I know. I was a fool," she sighed sorrowfully, casting a nostalgic look out the window.

"If you don't mind my asking, what is it that this other guy had that Steve didn't?"

Catherine took a moment to reflect upon the reason for choosing one man over the other before answering in a deep regretful sigh, "He was there for me."

"You mean physically speaking?" Frances inferred.

"Physically and emotionally. Lieutenant Mayfield and I were assigned to the same command unit. We worked together on a daily basis and we enjoyed each other's company. We discovered we shared many things in common and I eventually came to recognize that he was a lot like Steve in many ways. But most importantly he never referred to our relationship as 'having a thing', as Steve so often annoyingly did," she said sourly.

"Catherine, that's how Navy guys talk! A lot of macho nonsense!"

"Has he ever labeled your relationship as such?"

Frances shrugged. "Not to my knowledge, no, but he might have with the guys, I don't know."

"It was bothering me to think that's how he considered me. I realized then that Steve was never going to commit and I was longing for stability and not just one-night stands."

Frances was stunned. "Funny, those are Steve's exact words. He said he was ready to discuss your future but that you were the one skirting the subject. That's when he came to suspect another man had entered the picture."

"He did?" Catherine was rather surprised.

"It's a shame you two got your signals crossed. Odds are you could have been Mrs. Steven McGarrett by now."

Catherine flashed a diffident smile. "Anyway it didn't work out between Peter and me. I found out he was already in a committed relationship and that he was just using me as a playmate while out to sea. I admit he fooled me good."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I got my comeuppance for doing the same to Steve."

"Safe to say you realize now there's no one that compares to him?"

Catherine nodded. "I made a dreadful mistake. Anyhow that's water under the bridge," she said resignedly.

"Catherine, if you and Steve are meant to be together, I won't stand in the way."

"What? You mean you'd be willing to let him go?" Catherine was bewildered. "You're a bigger fool than I am."

"You both share a longer history. He and I are very good friends and I expect we'll remain so whatever happens between us. I love him dearly, enough to want what's best for him. I wish him to be happy and if being with you is what it takes, then sobeit. Putting him in shackles isn't the way to show your love and understanding. You know he'll seek to cast off his bonds at first available opportunity, and that is definitely not the basis of a solid marriage foundation."

"He won't ever forgive me after the way I've treated him."

"Everyone makes mistakes and Steve is no exception. Besides he's not one to hold a grudge."

"I guess not."

"Steve is his own man. It's his decision."

"You're something else." Catherine said, amazed by the words of wisdom.

Frances tittered, "I've been called worse."

* * *

No sooner had Frances arrived home that Duke called to report on the whereabouts of Father Molokai. He had followed the priest to the Byodo-In Temple in the Valley of the Temples where he normally presided over ecclesiastical ceremonies. Moreover, the preliminary background check yielded no substantiated reports of criminal arrests or misdemeanors. In all evidence the man's reputation was unblemished. However Frances's churning stomach was convinced otherwise. Something about the man just didn't sit well with her and she intended to keep that priest on her radar.

Frances's contact at FBI panned out and the special authorization to excavate on the burial ground was issued within the hour. The team was back on the scene early next morning.

* * *

They came equipped with mining paraphernalia of picks, shovels and sledgehammers. A compact excavator and a winch were also brought to the site to assist in the undertaking. It wasn't long before the trap door was yanked open and then unhinged to reveal an eerie dark ten-foot radius hole.

Frances scooped down by the edge and with Chin and Catherine holding her by the waist to prevent her fall, she cautiously leaned over the hole and shouted down Steve's and Danny's names. She pricked her ear and closed her eyes in deep concentration, mentally blocking out all other surrounding sounds as her heart beat in anticipation of picking up a voice, however weak or muffled it might be.

She addressed Chin, "Hand me a flashlight, will you?" She shone the light down the hole and shouted, "Danny? Steve?" Again she lent a sharp ear but a deathly silence was her only answer.

"I can't hear anything," she conceded after the third attempt. "They could be unconscious down there."

"Or dead," voiced one the rescue workers, his curt observation receiving glares from the aggregate of friends.

"There's only one way to find out," Frances said as she proceeded to remove the blouse over her t-shirt to prepare to be lowered down the hole. "Hand me a harness. I'm going down."

"Frances it'd be wise to let the workers do the job seeing how they came equipped with their gear," Chin suggested, motioning to the climber clipping on his harness.

"All right," she agreed with much reluctance.

* * *

General Nyland sat behind his desk, engrossed in a file when Joe came striding in.

"You wanted to see me?"

"Yes. It's in regards to our two guests' impromptu visit."

"George, he was telling the truth!" Joe snarled in a last-ditch attempt to drill the notion of accident through Nyland's head.

General Nyland held a placating hand up without lifting his eyes from the e-report in front of him. "Don't get all worked up, I believe him."

Joe straightened up at the news, a wave of relief washing over his face. "What finally convinced you?"

"The report from security came back negative. There was no evidence of computer hacking or forced entry anywhere in the complex. They found plenty of foot prints and droplets of blood on the ground where they fell. DNA checked out. The switch mechanism in the cave wall was still working and they found their fingerprints on two of the missile cases. Plus which NSA confirmed they're in the clear for espionage."

"That's good to hear."

"However our ground informant briefed us on a search party roaming on area 22 where the three men went down."

"I imagine they would be looking for them."

"That's the problem. We can't have them finding this complex."

"They won't if you managed to temporarily condemn the hole like you said."

"It might not stop them, particularly if they do find the trap door."

"So what do you intend to do then?"

He picked up the phone and fingered an extension on his desk. "Doctor Brennan. It's General Nyland. Prepare two injections of KCL for our two guests. I'll be right down."

"You're going to kill them?!" White exclaimed, appalled.

"Joe, I don't have a choice. I need to put a lid before this gets out of hand and the Navy, FBI, CIA get involved. The survival of our base depends upon my shipping their bodies back to them to stop the land search."

"I can probably stall them."

"How?"

"I have contacts within top organizations. They'll grind the search to a halt for the time being until you make a final decision about their release."

"Can't risk it. It might take too long or even they might get suspicious and we certainly don't need them snooping around in our affairs. That could have dire consequences globally."

"Then send them back alive."

"I can't!"

"Use the memory wipe to erase their memory of the incident."

"It's not that simple! They cannot just waltz out of here without proper clearance. No one knows about them except the two men who found them, Brennan and you and I. And us three only are privy to their true identities. Only in caskets can they leave this complex and for that they need to be dead."

"I thought you were going to use them as guinea pigs in Miranda? At least that could stall for time until we figure something out."

"That would have been an option provided that there hadn't been a search party swarming close to the entry shaft. That leaves me no choice but to get rid of them and fast."

"There has to be another way?"

"I'm afraid there isn't." the general answered woefully.


	8. Chapter 8

_**Thank you again for all of your fav/fol and reviews. Reading them puts a smile on my face and some are pretty witty. **_

_**Here's the next chapter with a bit of a cliffhanger.**_

The group gathered around to watch the rescuer being slowly lowered down the hole.

A heart-thumping three minutes later, a voice spoke on the radio transceiver, advising the cable-winch operator to stop. He checked his counter. "fifty-two feet."

"What do you see?" Frances asked anxiously.

He removed his dust mask from his nose and mouth and let it hang loosely around his neck. He then picked up his flashlight and together with the light from his hard hat, he looked around. "Nothing but rocks and earth. No sign of them."

"Is the ground firm or soft?"

He tapped his feet to feel the ground beneath his boots. "It's not compacted." He looked up and shone his flashlight around. "Could be that the dirt wall came loose during the quake, shoveling all that earth on top of them."

"That would mean they're buried alive." Chin's assumption sent a chill down their spines.

"How deep is it?" Frances asked, curious as to how much dirt had actually fallen. She then turned to Chin and offered a ray of hope to his dark statement, "There could be pockets of air underneath."

The rescuer reached a hand in his back to pull out a long pole and began poking at the ground. He drove the sharp pick as far as it could before it hit a hard surface. He yanked it up and repeated the inspection several times before reaching the same conclusion. "There's about two feet of powdered dirt, after which it's all hard soil. Not deep enough to have been buried alive."

"Are you sure there aren't any other openings?" Frances challenged.

He flashed his light around. "No. There's not a lot of space down here. If they'd been here I would have stepped on them for sure."

"Alright Al. We're bringing you up," his chief spoke through his mouthpiece before he signaled the winch operator to reel the cable up.

"I'm thinking this trap door leads to an underground bunker, possibly left behind from the last wars," Frances provided an educated guess from her cursory analysis of the opening mechanism. "So there has to be tunnels under there."

"Well if there are, they're no longer accessible,' claimed the rescuer as he appeared out of the hole. "The ground is like concrete. I couldn't get through with my pick."

"Guess we're back to square one," Chin sighed dismally.

"Hand me your gear, I'm going down," Frances said doggedly, removing her light blouse to reveal a Navy-blue T-shirt underneath.

"Commander, they're not down there," the rescue team chief tried to reason as she prepared to strap up.

"Do you mind if I take a look for myself?" she asked calmly but firmly with eyes gleaming with defiance.

"Let her," Chin said, banking on her intuition to yield a missing clue.

Once she reached the bottom, she shed the mask, loosened the harness and began inspecting the ground with her hand and hard-hat flashlights. She coughed out the dust entering her airway as she hunched down on her heels to scoop up a handful of earth that she rubbed against her fingers to feel its texture. She took the spade from her belt and dug until she reached the hard layer. She proceeded to scratch the surface of the slab to collect a mineral dust sample that she neatly poured inside a specimen bag.

She then stood and studied the dirt wall meticulously. Its surface was rugged with jagged rocks and twigs protruding. She reached for a magnifying glass in the utility belt and scanned every inch of that wall to uncover tangible evidence that either a human or animal had gone down this hole, and was most likely trapped somewhere underneath.

"Find anything?" Chin asked.

She adjusted her earpiece. "Not yet." The creases on her brow deepened as her gaze travelled to a minuscule shred of cloth nailed to a hard twig. She gently peeled it off its hook with her glove and placed it inside a specimen bag. Thereafter she rapped on the wall and listened for hollow sounds that would indicate a secret passage. Then she pulled out her cell phone and took random pictures.

When satisfied with her findings, she tightened her harness and signaled to team above to winch her up.

Once out of the hole, Chin grabbed hold of her waist to pull her away from the opening and onto firm ground.

She unlatched her harness and shed the gear. "Thanks for the lend of the equipment. You can pack up for now, but make sure you put the lid back and cover it with a bit of dirt, but not too much mind you. We might need to go back down there," she addressed the chief rescuer who was more than thankful to finally bid farewell to this forbidden zone.

"Did you find anything?" Catherine asked.

"Nothing solid yet. No secret passages that could be accessed, but I collected a few samples, including this." She held up the specimen bag in front of the group.

"What is it?" Karen asked, nearing her sister to get a closer look at the shred of fabric.

"Piece of material. Could come from any number of clothes. I'll bring it to Charlie to have analyzed."

"This could have been down there for ages," Kono assumed.

"True. I expect Charlie will use radiocarbon dating to determine the vintage. So far it's all we have to go on," Frances said with a hint of optimism that rubbed off on the group.

"You really think they could actually be trapped down there?" Chin asked.

"All evidence we've found so far point to that conclusion. I studied the concrete slab underneath the loose soil. I suspect it to be a man-made gate rather than sediments of rocks. But Charlie will confirm."

"So both traps opened simultaneously when they fell in then snapped shut," Kono inferred with optimism.

"I'm not totally subscribing to nor balking at that theory. And with pockets of air underneath, they can survive."

"Yeah but for how long?" Mary cast a gloom over the growing enthusiasm.

"That's why we need to act fast. Catherine, I'll need you to contact the Navy Coast Guard to have a land SAR team on standby. We might have to bring in the heavy artillery and since we're talking Steve McGarrett, I trust they'll expedite clearance for the workforce deployment. But they must wait for our green light. We first need the results of the tests to be positive before they move in."

"Consider it done."

"All right, people, let's pack up for now!"

* * *

His bleary eyes blinked open, seemingly unseen and unable to process the unfamiliar surroundings. He took a moment to tap into his memory bank but drew a complete blank as to where he was.

His face contorted as a wave of pain washed over his chest. His hand lazily crawled up on top of his rib cage and stopped to prod at the dressing before moving up to his bandaged head. When the notion of a hospital room entered his mind, he somewhat relaxed and exhaled a burning breath down his scorched throat that triggered a cough.

"Commander McGarrett, how are you feeling?" Brennan asked his groggy patient with an eye up on the heart monitor to read the latest vitals.

"Thirsty," he rasped out.

Doctor Brennan brought a cloth containing chipped ice to Steve's lips. "Here, suck on this."

Steve sluggishly munched on the crushed ice that brought some soothing relief to his parched throat.

"Are you in any pain?"

Steve cringed and rubbed his chest over his heart. "My chest. It stings a bit."

"What about the head?"

"Yeah, it's pounding," he hissed in pain with deep furrowed brows.

"On a scale of one to ten?"

"Not too bad. Maybe two," he hissed in pain with deep furrowed brows.

"I'm a military doctor, Commander. I can tell when fellow officers lie through their teeth."

"If I tell the truth you'll give me drugs and I don't want any," Steve argued squishing his eyes shut.

"Stubborn, aren't we?" Brennan was amused and against his better judgement, didn't release any pain medication.

Steve turned to Brennan with an inquisitive stare that prompted the doctor to introduce himself. "I'm Doctor Brennan."

Steve nodded with eyelids drooping. He licked his lips and craned his neck to hazard another gulp down his throat. He erupted in another hoarse cough that seared his chest.

"You want some more water?"

Steve shook his head while rubbing his sore spot. "Where…where am I?" he queried as his bleary eyes gleaned over the room.

"The infirmary."

Steve glanced at Brennan quizzically. "We're on a military base?"

"Well yes and no."

"Which is it?"

"Yes as it is run by Armed Forces personnel but no, it's not a military base. You're actually seventy stories below the earth."

Steve squinted incredulously. "What?"

"This is the underground, Commander."

Steve blinked in consternation. "How in the hell did I get here?"

"You told us you and your partner fell down a hole in the ground."

"Partner? Danny." The word instantly yanked him out of his torpor. He impulsively threw the bed sheet aside and tried to haul himself out the bed.

"Wait a minute, where do you think you're going?" Brennan grabbed Steve by the shoulders to thwart his foolish attempt at aggravating his condition. "Lie back. You're in no shape to leave this bed."

"I want to see Danny. Where is he?" Steve was most insistent and under normal circumstances he would have easily fought his way out of bed. He tried to push the hands away but found that the tiniest effort was zapping his energy and his body quickly betrayed him.

"Commander, lie still!" Brennan ordered, pushing Steve gently back onto the bed. "I may only be a lieutenant but as your doctor I outrank you." He cast a glimpse at the heart monitor. "Your heart rate is too high. You must take it easy or you'll end up reopening the wound."

"What wound?" Steve panted with a puzzled look.

"You suffered an aortic dissection, a tear in the inner layer of the aorta that we successfully cauterized with the laser. It is crucial that you remain quiet and keep your movement to a bare minimum or you'll most likely undo our work, which was no small undertaking I assure you. You were bleeding internally and would have drowned in your blood if we hadn't found you when we did."

"Danny," Steve mewed like a helpless child, eyes pleading with the doctor to tell him where his friend was.

"Look behind me." Brennan scooted over to the side to allow Steve a clear view of the patient lying in the next bed. "As you can see he's alive."

"Is he all right?" Steve asked in a breathless whisper, his eyelids sagging from the strain of his failed attempt to get out of bed.

"He's stable and resting comfortably. He was also very lucky. His spine was crushed on the right lumbar side but we were able to restore the severed nerve connections and prevent paralysis."

"I always thought that was impossible. How did you do that?" Steve was baffled as to how the treatment was administered.

"Nerve rerouting is feasible in cases of spinal cord lesions depending on where the injuries occurred. Overtime movement in the limbs can be restored to a certain extent. Our cutting edge medical science technology just enabled us to nudge it along faster. Just like your dislocated shoulder. It's not sore, is it?"

Steve closed his eyes and swallowed dryly, then shook his head. The image of a missile flashed behind his eyelids, setting off his panic button. "Rockets," Steve gasped, his breath itching down his throat at the vivid memory.

"Easy. Easy."

"I recall a room full of Popeye missiles."

"That's where we found you both. You were buried underneath a pile of stones."

"So that wasn't a dream?" Brennan shook his head. "What do they intend to do with them?"

"You don't want to know."

Steve frowned suspiciously at the doctor who could only offer a small conciliatory smile. Their stare broke when Joe and General Nyland entered the room and made their way to the bed.

"Joe?" Steve exclaimed weakly, blinking heavily to dispel any confusion as to the identity of the man before him.

"How you doing Steve?" Joe queried.

Steve's answer came in a nod as exhaustion was swiftly taking over his waning body.

"You have the syringes?" Nyland asked tersely without bothering inquiring about the patient's health.

"The injections are ready just as you ordered, sir," Brennan replied with a smidgen of annoyance.

"Bring them to me."

"You aren't actually going to do it while he's conscious?" Joe asked, revolted at the very thought of his flesh and blood experiencing blistering pain during lethal injection.

"Of course not!" Nyland said, somewhat insulted. "Contrary to what you might think of me, I'm not that heartless."

"Here you are, General." Brennan handed him a alcohol-imbued cotton swab and one syringe filled with a deadly concentrated dose of Potassium Chloride.

"Thanks. Put him under."

Steve squinted at the name tag on the general's uniform. "Nyland? As in General George Nyland?"

"That's right."

"Frances's and Karen's MIA father?"

Nyland shot Steve a dubious look and signaled Brennan to hold the drugs. "How do you know my daughters?"

"My partner and I are marrying them."

"I didn't know you had daughters," Joe exclaimed in surprise.

"I did. They're dead," Nyland said matter-of-factly.

"No sir, I assure you they're not," Steve argued with all the might he could muster.

"My two daughters and their mother died in a car crash barely weeks after I was reported MIA."

"You have the wrong information," Steve breathed out, wincing at the growing throbbing pain in his chest. "Frances is FBI and came to Hawaii to…to join up with my task force on an…an investigation of a human trafficking cell. That's… that's where we found Karen. Frances is now working with us at Five-0."

"I don't believe you."

"Why…why would I lie?" Steve whimpered breathlessly, gasping for breaths that became increasingly hard to draw. The increasing throbbing in his skull didn't help matters any.

"Wait a minute! McGarrett?" his eyes squinted in suspicion. "You're the one who got my Frances pregnant?"

"It was an accident."

"Yeah I know, she told me. No wonder your name sounded familiar." General Nyland took a deep breath to regain his bearing after this startling revelation and removed the cap of the syringe to squirt a few drops of the chemical.

"You're not actually going to kill him after what he just said?"

Nyland closed his eyes to disregard Joe's comment and dispel all debilitating emotions before taking a hold of Steve's arm to swab the intended injection site with the cotton ball.

The heart monitor suddenly flatlined. "He's in full arrest." Brennan charged the defibrillator but before he could shock Steve through the electrodes already applied onto the chest, Nyland held a hand up.

"Wait!"

"What do you mean wait?"

"Leave him be."

Joe and Brennan exchanged frantic looks. "George, let's revive him!" Joe urged.

"Joe I came here to give him a lethal injection."

"That's before you knew your daughters were alive. For God sake's, remember how you felt when you thought they were dead? Well imagine what their deaths will do to them!" Joe was desperate to drill that notion of guilt into his comrade's head before he did the unthinkable. "They lied to you, George!" Joe peeved with eyes darting back and forth from the general and down on that syringe held dangerously close to Steve's skin. "You need to revolt against what they did to you and the best revenge is to keep these men alive."

"One minute, gentlemen," Doctor Brennan stressed, glancing up at the heart monitor shrilling a continuous flat line and vitals going down rapidly; then he glimpsed down at the patient's still form with lips turning a frightening shade of blue.

"Come on, George. Please I beg of you. Don't let him die. Don't do this to your girls!"

* * *

Sleep was hard to find that night. Frances tossed and turned in her bed, staring first at the ceiling and then at the digital clock. She took in her surroundings and realized she was in Steve's bedroom for her sister Karen had settled into her guest-bedroom.

With a small whimper and a pained heart caught in a vice-like grip, she turned on her left side and hugged Steve's pillow to breathe in the embedded scent.

"Hang on, Steve. We'll find you. We're so close I can feel it." She sniffed back a tear and dried her wet cheeks with her thumb before spooning the pillow real tight to espouse her curves. Steve's body scent slowly lulled her into a restful sleep


	9. Chapter 9

Late next morning, Danny lastly broke through the thick mist to awake to the sight of a strange man hovering over him.

"Hi!" greeted the friendly voice. "Nice of you to join us." Still in a deep haze, Danny squinted at the blurry face. "I'm Doctor Brennan."

"Hospital?" was all Danny managed to croak.

"Infirmary." Danny frowned puzzlingly at the rectification, which was a distinction without a difference in his book.

Brennan poured a glass of fresh water and dunked a straw in before holding it to Danny's lips. "Only sips, now." Once the patient was through, he proceeded to conduct a neurological examination to determine the impairment level of motor-sensory perception.

"I'm going to grope and poke at you, so don't be too annoyed. Warn me if you should feel the need to slap me."

Danny offered a faint, amused smile at the doctor's good humor as he mentally braced himself for the prodding.

As Doctor Brennan rotated his neck, Danny caught a glimpse of Steve lying in the next bed. "Steve! How is he?"

"It's his heart. It has a bit of trouble finding the right beat."

"What about his lungs? I remember I had to poke a hole through one of them to help him breathe." Danny quavered from the memory of that excruciating experience.

"He had a bilateral pneumothorax but we inserted a chest drain and he's able to breathe easier now. He's still weak from all the injuries he sustained. All he needs is a lot of rest and it should correct itself," he explained while continuing his assessment of the patient's motor responses. "Do you feel that?" he asked, poking Danny in the leg.

"Yeah."

"Can you wiggle your toes for me?" Danny did as instructed with ease. "Good. Now can you bend your knees?" That task however proved to be surprisingly taxing.

"I notice he's not on the respirator. That has to be a good sign?" Danny asked, his attention veering back to his partner.

"It is to some extent. He can breathe on his own with the aid of a nasal cannula, and we're encouraging him to do so in order to strengthen his lungs. Besides he's constantly in and out of consciousness. A tracheal tube would only trigger gagging reflexes and deplete his strength, which he needs most of to heal."

"Can I go to him?"

"I'll take you to him later but right now, I need to complete your examination."

Danny complied with the doctor's instructions, answering questions and moving his limbs when probed.

Minutes passed with Danny bearing and grinning through the procedure until finally, Brennan closed the medical chart and helped him into a sitting position on the edge of the bed prior to easing him down on his feet.

"How does it feel" Brennan asked his patient who appeared unsure of his ability to walk.

"Weird."

"Can you stand on them?"

Danny hazarded putting his entire weight on his legs. "Yeah. I think I can walk."

"I'll help you. Lean on me. Can't go too fast at first."

Danny took a step forward and stopped.

"You all right?"

"Yeah. Give me a second."

They waited for Danny to gain his balance and dispel the dizziness before walking at snail's pace over to Steve's bed, where Brennan assisted the patient into a chair.

Danny craned his neck to get a clear view of Steve's face. "He doesn't look good," he observed grimly from the ghostly features and slightly blue-tinged lips.

"He's fighting."

"Yeah, seems that's all he's been doing. I dread the day when he won't have any struggle left in him."

"You're his partner, his friend. You know him better than I do. I'm sure you can insufflate a second wind into him just with words of encouragement?"

"At this point, will he bother to listen?"

"Try. Although it…," his thought cut short and his face fell at the grim fate that awaited the two men, one that Danny certainly needed not to be told.

"What?"

"Never mind."

No sooner had Danny taken Steve's limp hand in his that General Nyland entered and mechanically moved over to the patient's bed without bothering acknowledging Danny's presence.

"How is he?" he queried.

"Not good. We may have waited too long to revive him."

"Brain damage?"

"Most likely but we won't know the breadth of it till he regains consciousness, which could be awhile."

"Can he safely be moved?" he continued on the same curt tone that bristled Danny.

"I wouldn't recommend it at the moment," Brennan warned, however relieved that the general was seriously contemplating releasing the two men unharmed.

"Prepare the vials just in case."

"I already have, sir."

"Good. I am awaiting the commander to corroborate the information before I make a decision."

"Perhaps Detective Williams here can provide answers," Brennan suggested, jutting his head toward the blond sitting in the chair with a bemused look on his face.

The General turned to Danny and eyed him condescendingly. "I'm sure he can but like McGarrett, it's merely words. I require irrefutable proof."

The Army officer squared his shoulders and marched out of the room, leaving Danny in his wake with a foul taste in his mouth.

"Who was that pompous asshole?" Danny didn't mince words.

"With any luck, your future father-in-law." Brennan grinned at the irony.

"That was General Nyland?"

"The one and only."

"We were told he was dead."

"Missing in action," Brennan corrected, "which doesn't necessarily mean deceased."

"At first glance he doesn't appear to be the loving, goodhearted gentleman his daughters described."

"He's not the same man they remembered. Although I'd like to believe there is still some shred of human decency and compassion lurking beneath that demeaning exterior."

"What did he mean by prepare the vials just in case?"

"Nothing for you to be concerned about," Brennan answered, visibly ill-at-ease.

Danny gave the room a cursory look. "What is this place? Where are we?"

Brennan deftly skirted the subject by quickly swerving the attention onto Steve. "Talk to your friend."

"Why all the secrecy?" Danny insisted.

"You're alive. That's all that matters." The doctor tabled the discussion. On that endnote, he quietly slipped away to allow Danny his privacy.

Danny leaned forward and squeezed Steve's hand with all the might he could rally but found his own grip to be extremely weak. "Oh Steve, what have we gotten ourselves into this time?" he muttered dejectedly, a sense of hopelessness invading him.

* * *

Early the next day Frances drove to the CSU building to meet with Charlie Fong; her optimism running high that his analysis generated the anticipated results.

"Charlie!"

"Good morning, Commander."

"Your call says you have something for me?"

"Indeed I do. There's positive and negative," he reported with a slight uneasiness. "Which one you want first?"

"Let's get rid of the neg."

"The lab results didn't yield anything significant to suggest the trap doors were man-made. The soil samples were pure ordinary earth mineral, mixed in with organic matter and gases, no evidence to suggest otherwise."

"Anything remotely human as in blood, hair?"

Fong shook his head. "Nothing."

"Anyhow that's inconsequential as they could have carved the traps out of real lava stones," she deduced. "What about the piece of fabric?"

"That's the good news. It's made of para-aramid synthetic fibers, poly paraphenylene terephthalamide to be exact, better known under the brand name Kevlar."

"As in bullet-proof vest material?"

"Right. And it's recent."

"Chin did mention that Steve and Danny were wearing their vests when they went missing." She pondered for a moment before following up with the next question, "Any fingerprints, blood drops or anything that can provide further proof?"

"Negative. Sorry."

"That's all right. In light of this evidence I can give the green light to go deeper into that hole and find what's under there. Good work, Charlie." She excitedly tapped him on the shoulder before leaving the lab.

She pulled out her cell phone and dialed Catherine's number while walking briskly over to her car. "Catherine, it's Frances. Get in touch with your contact at Naval Intel. Tell him all systems go and to have his team ready to move. I'll call him with all the details this afternoon."

"Okay, will do. Does this mean you have a lead?"

"Yes. The piece of cloth I found down the hole, it was Kevlar. No doubt it belonged to either Steve or Danny. One must have ripped his vest during the fall."

"That's good news or at least I hope it is. I'd hate to think they're dead down there."

"We must think positive. I'll be at the Palace within the hour." No sooner as she ended the call that she dialed her contact's at FBI. She sat behind the wheel of her car and waited for him to answer.

"Glenfield? It's Nyland."

"Lieutenant Commander," the FBI NSB Executive Assistant exulted. "What can I do you for today?"

"Listen, can I impose on you to render me another huge favour?"

"Two in one week?! That's going to cost you," he said teasingly.

"You name it!" she invited mischievously.

"Well, we never did go out on that date."

"I'd love to but as you know I'm already spoken for."

"Yeah, McGarrett," he pouted. "The lucky bastard!"

She chuckled. "You said it yourself you couldn't handle me."

"It might have been worth to try," he cajoled.

She rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Get your mind out of the gutter, Lieutenant. So how about it?"

"Awwww all right, for you I'll do it. What is it?"

"You remember the clearance you obtained for me to dig on that Hawaiian hei'au?"

"Yeah I remember. Did it pan out?"

"It did. Got strong evidence that our two men might be trapped down there. Only now we need to reach deeper underground. See where I'm going with this?" she hinted, fully aware that he would pick up on her claim.

"Yeah and I don't think I can follow up on that requisition this time around. I pulled a lot of teeth to get the last one. You already stretched the limit once."

"This is a matter of life and death. I have reasons to believe that Commander McGarrett and his partner are trapped down below, only we can't reach that far down. We need the heavy plows."

"Okay I'll see what I can do. But don't hate me if I can't deliver."

"Do whatever you can. Thanks Glenfield. Next time I'm in Washington, lunch's on me."

"I'll hold you to that promise."

She ended the call and put on the ignition.

* * *

Less than an hour later Frances made her way up to Five-0 briefing room where she found Chin, Kono and Catherine around the smart table discussing what she assumed to be a critical subject.

"Hi gang!" they turned to face her, each looking noticeably downcast. She stopped and frowned, her eyes shifting from one bleary expression to the next. "What's the matter?"

"The Navy won't budge," Catherine informed.

"What...what do you mean they won't budge?"

"I called Commander Evans to request him to get his men ready, and he told me that they were ordered not to make a move unless we had iron-clad proof that Commander McGarrett was anywhere inside the hei'au."

"But I do have that evidence. Didn't you tell him about the piece of Kevlar?"

"I did. He said that's not enough to justify rummaging through a sacred ground. They'll get tied up in court litigation for years if they did anything to disrupt the land."

"I don't believe this!" Frances was incensed. "Do you have his number?"

Catherine handed Frances her cell. "It's on speed dial."

"Dial it," she asked rather bluntly. Once the communication was established she took the phone and disappeared into her office, closing the door behind her.

"May I speak to Commander Evans please? Lieutenant Commander France Nyland." She rounded her desk and sat behind it while anxiously waiting for the communication to be established. "Commander Evans?"

"Commander Nyland?" he acted surprised but that didn't fool Frances.

"I have no doubt you're already aware of the nature of my call?"

"If it's with regard to Lieutenant Rollins's request, yes I do."

"I would like to know why is it that you are denying us the SAR team, sir?"

"The insubstantial evidence, Commander. We need more to go on before we turn a sacred burial ground upside down. Are you aware of the implications if we do accede to your request?"

"With all due respect, sir," she grinded the words through clenched teeth, striving to keep her emotions in check, "a high-ranking Naval officer with classified knowledge is trapped underneath and might fall into the wrong hands if we don't get to him first."

"Mid-rank, Commander," he corrected insolently, raising her ire and calling down her wrath. "Lieutenant Rollins spoke of a piece of bullet-proof vest. I'm sorry but you will require to produce more extensive evidence to prove your allegation that Commander McGarrett has indeed fallen through that hole."

Sensing her blood-boiling rage about to burst, she closed her eyes and held back an anger-fraught sigh before speaking calmly. "What if I were to accept all responsibility for my actions, sir?"

"You cannot be authorized to act of your own accord on this. I'm sorry. Bring us more tangible evidence and we might consider pressing the issue further."

"Understood," she reluctantly conceded, swallowing her pride and the churning feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"Goodbye Commander."

"Shit!" she cursed aloud, pressing hard on the end call button that her finger nearly pulverized the tab. She then dialed up her contact at FBI. "Glenfield, it's Nyland. Got anything so far?" The young naval officer on the other end failed to respond. "Glenfield are you there?"

"Yeah, I'm here," he replied with a shaky voice. "I'm sorry Frances, I couldn't secure that authorization."

"And why not? It was easy the first time around."

"The first time was simply to look around and still you dug and that ruffled a few preservation organizations' feathers. It's a very delicate matter. Unless you have more evidence to bring forth I'm afraid they won't allow you to enter the ground anymore."

"Funny that's the same answer I received from the Navy a few minutes ago. What is it you're not telling me?" she asked distrustfully with a scowl shaping her features.

"Frances take my advice. Let it go for now. It's too risky."

"Two men's lives are at stake and you want me to just forget about it?" she peeved.

"I'm sorry. My hands are tied. I don't rank high enough on the scale to push this further."

"I know you've tried everything. Thanks," she sighed dejectedly, not concealing her discontentment and resentment. "I'll be in touch." She pressed the end call and buried her head in her hands in an attempt to quell the rising fury about to consume her. She rubbed her eyes, then ran her hands across her face to wipe the remnants of marked dejection before perking herself up.

She angrily opened her door and breezed out of her office. "I'll be right back," she said as she headed straight for the exit and down to the parking lot.

She sat behind the wheel and slammed the car door. There, she sat in silence, her head leaning back. She ran a hand over her face in frustration before leaning forward and gripping the steering wheel in anger. She was stewing in her own juices at her failed attempt to get things moving. She slowly came to suspect someone had purposely thrown a wrench in the works. She had to work another angle, beginning with the Hawaii State Parks.


End file.
